


The Two Body Problem

by Tozette



Series: The One Where Hermione Has Good Intentions [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Magic, Dumbledore is not a moron, Gen, Hermione is clever, Implied Child Abuse, Tom Riddle's Diary, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 19:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3459731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tozette/pseuds/Tozette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ginny made a thin, distressed sound. “I ... Look, I promised Tom I wouldn’t let him be handed in,” she said in a small voice.</p><p>“Well, if he’s going to go around petrifying people, I don’t see much reason why people ought to keep their promises to him,” said Hermione crossly. </p><p>[Hermione gets the diary. Things go differently from there. AU.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Edit on Saturday 14th of March 2015: credit where it is due, this fanwork has been beta read by [exoscopy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/exoscopy), the small horror of my fridge.

The second year Gryffindor girls’ dormitory was more or less identical to the boys’: unmade four-poster beds, clothing on the floor, a half-full package of Bertie Botts’ on a bedside table. Hermione’s bed was also a mess, but it was different from the others.

There was, by her reckoning, just enough space to sleep - the rest was a veritable fortress of stacked books. She was, in fact, using a few spells to keep the walls of leather and parchment from tumbling down upon her.

Hermione would never have been allowed, in her parents’ home, to keep herself in such a state, but at Hogwarts it was just one of the harmless eccentricities of an adolescent witch - and significantly less weird than some of the others at that.

Like Lavender’s perfume. It was a new one every week at the moment, and... well, Hermione was fairly certain that the smells had worked their way irretrievably into the fabric of basically everything in the dorm. Sometimes Hermione got a whiff of it when she was alone in the library, and realised with sinking dread that it was in her _hair_.

The newest one smelled like an odd mix of mangos and rose, and was giving Hermione a headache. She was just contemplating either escaping to the library or opening a window and letting some of the mercilessly cold air in when there was a knock at the door.

“Hermione?”

“Ginny?”

“Can I, er, d’you think I could talk to you for a second?”

“Sure,” said Hermione, looking around at her stacks of books. “Sure, hang on,” she added, and cleared an extra space on her bed. She had to mutter a fixing charm to get her new stack of books to remain in its position of precarious balance, but she was pretty sure it would hold for a couple of hours at least.

Ginny came and perched carefully next to her on the bed. She peered curiously at the title of Hermione’s book. “ _Bibliology, a History of Books as Physical Objects_...?”

“It sounds dry, but it’s really quite fascinating,” Hermione said eagerly. “Did you know in the eighteenth century, they used to put the wrong edition number on a book on purpose to make it seem more popular? So, a book that was labelled ‘fifth edition,’ might very well have been in its first print run.”

“Huh,” said Ginny, “that’s interesting.”

“It really is,” Hermione agreed, flashing her a delighted smile. “And then in 1710 the Statute of Anne came in, which was supposed to make copyright a matter for the courts in muggle England,” she went on.

Ginny nodded, although Hermione couldn’t help but notice that she did look a little bit distracted. Actually, she looked sort of... unwell. Shrunken.

She nodded when Hermione went on though, so she kept going. “The Wizengamot meddles a lot in muggle politics, actually,” she added thoughtfully. “Although the point of _that_ exercise seems to have been increased control of what knowledge was in circulation for muggles - it was one of the British follow-ups for the International Statute of Secrecy - but of course the muggles completely ignored it for _years_. Drove the Wizengamot a bit spare, obviously.”

“Oh,” said Ginny. She didn’t sound nearly as enthused as Hermione felt she should be. Hermione looked at her uncertainly.

There was a long pause.

“I’m sure it’s very interesting,” Ginny said after a second.

Hermione huffed, wondering why Ginny would bother pretending to be interested if she wasn‘t. Honestly. “It is,” she said defensively, raising her chin.

“Er,” said Ginny. Another pause reigned over the dorm room.

“But what did you want to talk to me about?”

Ginny‘s hands were shaking a little. “It’s about a book, actually,” she said, clenching her hands in her robe. “A diary.”

“That book you’ve been lost in for months?” Hermione asked, surprised. She’d noticed, but... well, she hadn’t really been paying a lot of attention. She wondered if that was bad of her. It was Ginny’s first year, after all, and she was Ron’s younger sister... and this terrible Chamber of Secrets business must be scaring her witless, too.

Ginny just nodded, but she was hunched in on herself in a way that Hermione wasn’t sure she liked. “I need your advice,” Ginny said after a tense second, “but you really - this has to be a secret,” she said.

_Why me?_ Hermione wanted to ask, and it must have shown in the rise of her brows because Ginny shrugged one shoulder.

“I don’t know anybody who knows more about books than you do,” she pointed out, looking around at Hermione’s book fortress.

Probably true, which wasn’t so much a comment about Hermione as a comment about everybody else. “Well of course,” she said, settling down into her rumpled coverlet, pressing her back to her most stable wall of books.

“It _really_ has to be a secret,” Ginny repeated.

“I won’t tell anybody,” Hermione assured her. “I’m good at keeping secrets.” And, really, how dangerous could a _book_ be?

“All right.” Ginny looked helpless for a second, and then she took a deep, shuddering breath. “His name’s Tom.”

A boy? Hermione’s eyes narrowed. She’d read about cursed books before, certainly... That sounded like an awful trick for somebody to play! “Tom? Is that who gave you the book?” she demanded.

Ginny closed her eyes. “No, he is the book. He’s a memory, preserved in the diary.” A pause, here, like she was fighting to get the words out, “I’ve been talking to him.”

Hermione felt her own eyes widen in response. A whole person? In a book? Her mind raced, leaping from idea to idea. If such a thing could really be achieved -- and, with magic, why _couldn’t_ it be achieved? -- the possibilities were endless. The amount of knowledge --

“I think he might be dangerous.”

Hermione’s train of thought screeched to a halt.

“Dangerous?” she repeated sharply. “How?”

“I think, maybe -- he was a student here, fifty years ago, when the Chamber was last opened, and I think --”

She stopped, but Hermione didn’t need her to go on.

“You think he’s the Heir of Slytherin,” Hermione said abruptly. “Ginny, you have to take this to a teacher!”

Ginny swallowed. Her face looked wan and grey, but still as though she was about to crumple down into tears. “I can’t!” she said in a shaking voice. “I’ll get in trouble, I - oh, Merlin, people are _petrified_ , Hermione, I’ll get _expelled_.”

Hermione frowned at her. “Maybe Percy, then. He's --”

“Percy --” said Ginny sourly, interrupting.

“-- a prefect," Hermione continued over the top of her.

“--would tell Mum,” Ginny finished.

“Oh.”

“Mum would go _spare_ ,” Ginny muttered. “I’d never be let out of my _bedroom_ , let alone back to Hogwarts.”

Hermione felt that she was probably exaggerating a little bit, but then she didn’t really understand how other people’s home lives were - she’d heard there were _bars_ on Harry’s window this summer. She pressed her lips together to stop herself from commenting. “Well, maybe I could hand it in - say I’d found it somewhere, that sort of thing?” she suggested.

“You can’t!” Ginny said, sharp and quick, and her hand was quite suddenly on Hermione’s wand arm. Her fingers were thin, so thin - had she been so thin at the start of the year? Hermione couldn’t be sure - but they clutched her wrist with bruising pressure.

Hermione stilled.

There was a tremor in Ginny’s hand, but her eyes were too bright and steady and terribly intent.

“Ginny...” she said softly.

Ginny made a thin, distressed sound. “I ... Look, I promised Tom I wouldn’t let him be handed in,” she said in a small voice.

“Well, if he’s going to go around petrifying people, I don’t see much reason why people ought to keep their promises to him,” said Hermione crossly.

Ginny looked stricken. “You can’t tell! You agreed --”

“I won’t,” Hermione said, quite reluctantly, “but I really do think that maybe you shouldn’t have this book on you all the time. Maybe you should stop writing in it.” She suspected that it wouldn’t be that simple, really. Gryffindors didn’t scare easily - even when they probably should have, if you considered Harry or Ron to be prime examples - so whatever the book was...

“Could you put it somewhere for safekeeping? Or just leave it at Hogwarts for the holidays?” There was such a wild, wary hesitation on Ginny’s face that she felt compelled to add, “You can see how you feel when you come back.”

Ginny rubbed her mouth nervously. “I guess,” she said after a second. “I don’t want to leave him in my dorm room over Christmas. You’re staying, aren’t you? Could...”

She was silent for so long Hermione thought maybe she wasn’t going to continue. “Ginny?” she asked carefully.

“Could you keep him in your trunk?”

“Me?” Hermione blinked. She shifted uncomfortably. She wasn’t sure... did she really want something like that sitting in her trunk? And Ginny was a pureblood, too - if this Tom really was the Heir of Slytherin, Hermione would be in a lot more danger from him! “I don’t...”

“Just for the holidays,” Ginny interrupted. “I’ll -- I’m seeing Bill, over the break, he’s my brother, he’s a curse breaker, I’m sure he’ll be able to do something without... without hurting Tom, you know?”

There was a long silence. It was dubious. Hermione wasn’t sure how to break it.

“He can’t do anything at all unless you talk to him,” said Ginny.

Hermione pursed her lips. “For the holidays?” she said carefully. It wasn’t as though she was going home for the holidays because she could hardly trust either of the boys to keep their illicit potion on the boil, but...

Ginny nodded a little too quickly.

She looked young and earnest and terribly helpless. Hermione sighed. “All right,” she agreed.

“ _Thank you_ ,” said Ginny, and she bolted off to get her book like she thought Hermione would change her mind if she let her.

Hermione frowned about the dormitory. Maybe she’d have to go to the library after all. She hadn’t even thought of borrowing anything about cursed or sentient objects like that...

Twenty minutes later, Hermione was drifting through the stacks of books inside the Hogwarts student library. There was some beautiful fairytale quality to the library, something heady and sweet about the smell of books and the magic in them.

There was very little on the kind of sentient enchantment Ginny described, and that made Hermione unaccountably nervous. She comforted herself that the diary of Tom Riddle was safe for now, locked away in the bottom of her school trunk, and nobody would touch it until after the Christmas holidays.

The next day Ginny Weasley left Hogwarts with her brothers to return to her family for the holidays, along with - well, most of the students, actually. With the looming possibility of petrification, plenty of students were taking the opportunity to get away from Hogwarts very seriously indeed.

Hermione was staying, of course, because she was working on a project - polyjuice. The point of making the potion was to disguise Harry, Ron and herself as Slytherin students, get into their common room and question Draco Malfoy about whether or not he was setting some kind of great dirty monster upon the students.

Although she was sure he would be inclined to brag to his minions about it if he was the Heir of Slytherin, Hermione now rather doubted that was the case. Her pass to the Restricted Section (courtesy of Professor Lockhart) had led her to a fairly noxiously prejudiced book called the Pure-Blood Directory, and it seemed like the Malfoy family had kept _absurdly_ meticulous records. There was a clear and astonishingly unbroken line only slightly older than Charlemagne.

It was stupid to be so invested in such an irrelevant thing as to go about murdering muggleborns, but Hermione could hardly deny that the topic was fascinating. Although, as Ron said to her when she returned to the common room that evening, “You’d find watching tentacula grow fascinating, Hermione.”

“Why are you reading something like this, anyway?” Harry wondered, examining the Directory. “Seems kind of...”

“Stupid,” Ron suggested, wrinkling his nose. “That pureblood stuff’s all rubbish anyway.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, taking it back from Harry with a slightly too-sharp tug. “It’s got the histories and backgrounds of the big pure blood families in it,” she pointed out, flipping back to her bookmark.

“So?” Ron asked.

“So,” she said, not looking away from the text, “it’ll have which families claim to be related to Slytherin in it.”

“Malfoy,” Ron said.

“Maybe,” she said, hedging her bets. Even if it seemed increasingly unlikely that Malfoy was related to Slytherin - not least because according to the Directory, they were busy at war somewhere in Aquitaine at the time of Hogwarts’ founding.

“Isn’t that what the polyjuice is for?” Harry said, lowering his voice so as not to be overheard.

Hermione sighed. “And what if it’s _not_ him, Harry? You don’t think perhaps there are other families who might be related to Slytherin? Now, if you don’t mind, I’m trying to read.”

The boys exchanged a look and went back to what they were doing - which was, perhaps unsurprisingly, _not_ their homework.

The polyjuice potion actually caused Hermione no end of anxiety, and she checked on it with a paranoia that probably would have annoyed her friends if they’d known about it. She was well aware that a public toilet was hardly the appropriate venue for brewing advanced potions, and it was only good luck that the polyjuice potion was, while a little fiddly and time-consuming, extremely stable.

Unfortunately, the polyjuice potion turned out to be an absolute disaster.

Oh, Hermione’s plan went off without a hitch: Crabbe and Goyle knocked out easily with drugged food, the potion working perfectly, Draco none the wiser...

Hermione still spent weeks in the hospital wing under the very suspicious eye of Madam Pomphrey. And she was bored as hell.

She had been conscientious in the early completion of her homework, so there was no real work to do during the holidays. She was confined to the bed and not allowed to do anything really productive. If she read for more than an hour at a time, the matron swooped down upon her and insisted she stop because “Cat eyes, Miss Granger, are not designed for reading!”

Which, no, they weren’t. Her vision was dull and faintly greenish and she struggled to pick out details, which cut her reading speed to about a third of what it ought to have been. It was maddening.

Harry and Ron visited her of course, but all three of them were a little bitter that the potion had gotten them no closer to learning about the Heir. Hermione felt a vague sense of guilt for that, like it was some terrible shame that her plan, while flawless, had amounted to nothing -- which was absurd, because she could no more be blamed for Malfoy not being the Heir of Slytherin than she could for the seasons.

Despite her intellectual understanding of that, her friends’ resentful tempers made her feel as though she might be at fault. They still cared about her, obviously, but their visits were a little more awkward than they ought to have been.

Hermione considered, briefly, telling them about the - possibly cursed - book in her possession, but reluctantly kept her word to Ginny. Harry and Ron would probably want to talk to the book if they knew about it, anyway, and Hermione could not see that ending well.

Still, she continued to question the wisdom of her promise not to hand it in.

Hermione's hunt through the library resumed when she left the infirmary, but it still got her absolutely nowhere closer to discovering how one placed that much consciousness into an object, although she did learn some fascinating tricks on her own - how mirrors could be enchanted with basic personalities, for example.

In fact, according to her research, the only real way to achieve something even close to Ginny's description of the diary was to kill somebody and, through a number of awful-sounding rituals that Hermione chose not to pursue, transfer the dead person’s essence to an object - like a kind of an object-bound ghost.

That was foul, but even aside from that - which Hermione had not ruled out, for the Heir of Slytherin - it was not the sort of thing one could cast upon oneself, because it required the transplanted personality to be dead. It was, she surmised, almost impossible to do magic once you were dead.

Perhaps, Hermione thought, Ginny was exaggerating the sentience of the diary? Or maybe somebody was playing a cruel trick on her with --

Hermione shot up from her seat in the library and hurried out. She didn't break into a run until she was away from Madam Pince's fierce gaze.

"I say!" Yelped the Fat Friar as she ran through him. Hermione cringed at the feeling.

“Sorry!” she called over her shoulder, but she didn’t slow down. The girls' dorm was deserted, and Hermione threw her trunk open and scrambled for the diary.

"A protean charm," she muttered, dumping it on Lavender's perfumed bed and swiftly drawing her wand. "It has to be."

She fired spell after spell at the book with increasing aggression as she got nothing more than sparks, and then when she'd exhausted her own repertoire she dug into the Standard Book of Spells, Grade Three (it paid to be prepared, after all, and it was only a year ahead - she’d have to learn it soon enough), and tried some new ones.

The most successful spell she managed caused a strange, dusty smell to waft into the air, momentarily eclipsing the pervading reek of perfume, but that was all.

It was not a protean charm.

Hermione rubbed her forehead in frustration, perched on the edge of her own bed, and scowled.

Well. Maybe Ginny had overstated its intellect? Mirrors and the like could definitely achieve the appearance of human intelligence better than any computer simulation a muggle could come up with, that was certain.

She frowned thoughtfully at the book. It sat there, bound in leather, blank and unassuming.

"Fine," muttered Hermione. She snatched her quill and ink, took a deep breath, and... paused. What should she write?

If it really was a sentient being in there, she probably ought to introduce herself. _My name,_ she wrote, _is Hermione Granger._


	2. Chapter 2

There was a long pause. The ink shimmered under the torchlight for a moment and was quickly absorbed into the paper. Then, after a second: _Hello, Hermione Granger. My name is Tom Riddle._

Hermione examined the words critically. The handwriting was interesting, precise but narrow and spiky. She certainly didn't recognise it. She tapped her quill thoughtfully on the edge of the page.

After a moment, the writing was absorbed once more, leaving the page blank. Then it reformed: _You were casting charms on my diary - did Ginny give it to you?_

 _Yes,_ wrote Hermione, after a second's hesitation. _I was trying to figure out what you are_.

The implied question went unanswered. _Granger's an uncommon surname in the Wizarding World. Where are your parents from?_

She hesitated. _France_ , she wrote after a second. She wasn't entirely sure if she really wanted him to know anything about her parents - if he was the Heir of Slytherin, it was probably best to avoid letting him know they were muggles. If they were from France, perhaps it wouldn't seem strange he didn't know their names.

 _Strange that your parents would send you to school in Scotland, then... Beauxbatons Academy is supposed to be an excellent school._ Hermione had heard of Beauxbatons, but only because she'd read Hogwarts: A History - she knew the schools were sometimes in a partnership. _Except, of course, Hogwarts doesn't teach Dark Magic,_ he added with a lazy swirl of ink. _Some parents don't approve of that sort of thing, I suppose._

 _And Beauxbatons does?_ Hermione wrote, unable to help herself. If it was true, it seemed horribly irresponsible. Who would go around just teaching students Dark magic?

_Beauxbatons is famously neutral. They teach the theory behind Dark magic; Durmstrang is the only school on the continent that teaches it in practice - or, at least it was when I was a student. You didn't know that, though, did you?_

A short pause.

_Because your Hogwarts letter was the first you knew about being a witch at all?_

Hermione didn't write anything back for a few long moments.

 _You're a poor liar, Hermione Granger,_ he informed her in his neat, spiky script. _Purebloods have certain manners and credentials that they like to swap, and even most half-bloods can cite their line of wizarding descent. I'm right, aren't I? You're a muggleborn._

There was a longer pause. The words shone in fresh ink on the page, looking like they'd remain forever. Tom was patient.

 _Yes_ , she wrote defiantly.

 _Mmm. And you're frightened,_ he added thoughtfully, _because the Chamber has opened again, and Ginny thinks the Heir of Slytherin is me._

 _Isn't it_?

_Of course not. How could it be? I'm a memory in a book, Granger. It's true that the Chamber of Secrets was opened when I was at school, but when the culprit was caught it certainly wasn't I._

Hermione felt her brows furrow. _Can you tell me?_

There was a second's pause and then the new words melted out of the page: _I can show you._

The diary pages rustled as they flipped themselves to the date of June thirteenth, and quite suddenly, Hermione found herself pitching face-forward into somebody else's memory.

What she saw was not at all what she'd expected.

When she opened her eyes again, her face was stuck to the page and it was after curfew. " _Hagrid_?" she said, detaching herself and closing the diary.

She set the book on top of her trunk and glared at it.

"Hagrid," she muttered to herself, "is _not_ the Heir of Slytherin."

She was still thinking about it when she went to bed that evening, and she was afraid she'd been somewhat short with Harry and Ron that afternoon.

Hagrid was the one who'd tried to reassure her after Malfoy had called her 'mudblood' on the Quidditch Pitch. He was a half-blood himself - although a half-blood _what_ was still in question - and she very sincerely doubted that it would ever be his intention to attack muggleborn students at Hogwarts. And even if he had been so inclined, he respected Dumbledore too much to countermand his wishes.

Unless he was lying.

Hermione contemplated that for about ten seconds before she remembered that Hagrid was absolutely pants at keeping secrets, with exhibit A being _Fluffy_. If he was secretly a pureblood elitist Slytherin underneath his fluffy exterior, he was probably the most Slytherin Slytherin she'd ever even heard of.

No, she decided, the only way Hagrid could be responsible was if he was _accidentally_ setting some kind of bloody murderous monster loose upon the castle, which is more or less what Tom's memory suggested.

That didn't hold up either, though, did it?

Hermione rolled over in her tiny book-encased spot of bed, frowning behind her closed eyes.

If that had been the case, she could hardly see him sticking around to daub 'THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE' on the walls! No, the Chamber of Secrets was being opened on purpose, and the beast within was not being controlled by Hagrid.

Tom was either mistaken or lying.

Hermione considered her brief conversation with Tom. He had figured out her blood status almost immediately. He seemed knowledgeable. In his memory he had been no older than fifteen, maybe sixteen. He'd been a _prefect_.

A _Slytherin_ prefect, she reminded herself.

He had to have known that Hagrid just wasn't underhanded enough - or, to put it uncharitably, _clever_ enough - to dissemble very well or for very long.

Sleep was a long time coming, and her thoughts chased themselves wildly like a werewolf chasing its tail.

Predictably, Hermione descended upon the Hogwarts library early the next morning.

She loved the Hogwarts library. It felt to her as though its supply of books was nearly limitless, and it was well-stocked and well-maintained, despite how awful the librarian usually was. One of the reasons Hermione loved staying at Hogwarts was because she could wake up every morning and think 'there is an entire library just waiting for me a few floors away' and it never failed to make her feel a little thrill of happy excitement.

This morning, however, was not a time for leisurely perusal. He might have been lying about the Heir, but Hermione was determined to investigate Tom's comments about the other schools of magic.

Across Europe, there were only three major ones: Beauxbatons, Durmstrang and Hogwarts. There were a few minor academies, but as far as her reading showed those rarely had more than about forty students at any given time.

Hermione couldn't find any information about the actual curriculum studied at these schools in the library, and eventually resorted to asking Madam Pince, who was precisely as hostile as Hermione had been expecting.

She gave her a hard look. "Are you thinking about changing schools because of this dreadful Chamber business?" she asked sharply. "You'll have to ask a Head of House for permission to receive _that_ information."

Hermione blinked. "Are you saying there's no information on the curriculum at Beauxbatons in the-"

"It's in the Restricted Section," snapped Madam Pince, "and Professor Lockhart isn't anybody's Head of House. Now, unless you have a note from Professor McGonagall-"

"The _Restricted_ _Section_?" Hermione squawked. "It's a _school_ -"

"Miss Granger, this is a library, not a pub. If you must yell and chatter you may do it _outside,_ " she pointed toward the doors.

Hermione flinched. "Fine," she growled, and turned on her heel to leave the library and its odious keeper.

Professor McGonagall was on holiday just like the rest of them, but she did keep an hour aside each morning for consultations with students remaining over the break. When Hermione knocked on her office door, McGonagall called, "Come in, Miss Granger," from inside the room.

The office was stone-floored, with a large, diamond-paned window overlooking the broad grassy training grounds. In summer, it must have let in a great deal of light, but at the end of the year Professor McGonagall had candles lit even at mid-morning.

"Is this regarding your choice of subjects for next year, Miss Granger?" she asked, setting into a chair at her desk and gesturing Hermione into a second seat.

Hermione shook her head. "I'm still trying to decide that, actually," she said wryly. Then, figuring that it was best to be blunt, she lifted her chin. "No, Professor, I was wondering if I could have your permission to view curriculum information for Beaxbatons and Durmstrang."

There was a short pause. "Miss Granger, I do have every confidence that this business with the Chamber of Secrets will be sorted out," Professor McGonagall said cautiously. "Headmaster Dumbledore is looking into it."

Hermione looked steadily at her. She wondered if she should tell her that she didn't think she actually wanted to change schools, and she was truly just looking to compare curriculums... but she wondered if that wouldn't cause questions to be asked about why. If Tom was right, both of those schools were actively teaching at least the _theory_ of the Dark Arts, and...

Dark magic was definitely not accepted at Hogwarts.

Hermione frowned. That meant something. She wasn't sure what. But instinct said it meant something, and she wanted to know more.

She should keep it simple. "May I look into it anyway, Professor?" she asked flatly and evenly. She couldn't help the little surge of guilt she felt in her guts at lying to Professor McGonagall. She was her favourite teacher, after all.

There was an uncomfortable pause. "Yes," said McGonagall, sounding terribly weary even as she reached for a quill, "of course."

Hermione returned, triumphant, to the library, and handed Madam Pince her note with a clenched jaw. The librarian scowled fiercely at her and, after thoroughly examining her note, stood over her like an ogre while she fetched the specific books she was looking for.

They were not, Madam Pince informed her, to be taken from the library.

Hermione bristled at the implication that she would somehow damage the books, but quickly considered that actually it was probably more about spreading information. Which was... strange.

Actually, if Hermione thought about it, the whole concept of the Restricted Section was kind of strange. Hoarding information made perfect sense, but keeping it away from people really didn't sit well with Hermione. That idea made her feel uncomfortable, so she determinedly repressed it while she read.

There were only two books, because she'd asked only for information on Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. The other, more minor schools across the continent were ones she'd have to apply to by owl post for even a cursory curriculum description. The books she had in her hands, however, were much newer than many others in the Restricted Section.

Beauxbatons Academy of Magic was, it turned out, extremely famous for producing students who went on to gain mastery in charms. There were elective subjects that Hermione had never even heard of, which could be taken from fourth year onward - things like 'Occlumency: The Art of Keeping the Mind,' 'Introduction to Healing Magic' and 'Wandlore: A Practical Study'.

It was with a strange surge in her stomach that she skimmed over the curriculum summary for 'Dark Arts Theory.'

More immediately alarming was a subject that was titled simply 'Defence Arts'. This was not, as it turned out, a subject that taught defence against the Dark Arts specifically, and the writing made that extremely clear within the first sentence.

_Defence against the Dark Arts is covered, but Beauxbatons Academy is committed to offering a wholistic curriculum and in pursuit of this goal we have revised the traditional curriculum of 1546 to include defence against all forms of potentially hostile magic._

Durmstrang Institute was in Norway, founded by a Bulgarian, and the subjects offered were even stranger. The slender curriculum book began with a note:

_Be advised that students born of non-magical parents are required to take an additional unit on Wizarding Culture and History during first year. It is assessed on a pass/fail basis. Students may test out at any time. Students who fail will be expelled._

Durmstrang taught 'Theory of the Darkest Arts' as a compulsory unit, which could not be tested out of until the OWLs. Elective classes included Alchemy, Duelling, Introduction to Dark Magic, Theory of Martial Magic, History of War...

All of the schools taught Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, as well as basics like Charms, Potions and Transfiguration, but Hogwarts was the only one with an extensive NEWT-level Care of Magical Creatures course, and none of the other institutions even mentioned Divination or Muggle Studies - or, indeed, a unit specifically for defence against the _Dark Arts_.

So Tom was right about that, wasn't he? But the implications of that were murky and indecipherable to her. It meant that at least half of the magical population in Europe probably had at least a theoretical understanding of the Dark Arts.

Of course, it certainly didn't _seem_ like half of them were dark witches or wizards.

But most of the magical population of the United Kingdom did end up going to Hogwarts. Perhaps it was different elsewhere...

Hermione set her books aside and went to the foreign studies section to look for travelogues. She remained reading there until hunger drove her out to the Great Hall to get lunch.

That afternoon was actually one on which Harry (and Hermione and Ron, by extension) had been invited down to tea with Hagrid. Hermione knew she was more attentive and interested in him than usual, but he didn't seem to take any offence or seem the slightest bit suspicious.

He told them all that he'd helped get rid of the flesh-eating slugs that were plaguing the unicorn herd in the forbidden forest.

"I thought they only liked girls," said Hermione curiously.

"It's true," Hagrid agreed, "but yeh've gotta get friendly with the foals first, don't yeh? The adults come after." He said this with the air of a man imparting a great secret.

Hermione smiled, and the conversation moved on.

 _You're lying_ , Hermione wrote into the diary that evening. _It was never Hagrid._

 _The arrest records should be available to you,_ Tom responded in placid, narrow script. _Without Dumbledore to vouch for him, he would never have got a job in the Wizarding World._

Hermione ignored this, even though she felt a stab of irritation in defence of her friend. _It was you, wasn't it? Ginny's right. That's why you knew the attacks would stop once you'd framed Hagrid._

There was a very, very long pause.

Then, just as Hermione was thinking about closing her book again: _You're a clever little witch, aren't you? Not very discreet, but clever._

Hermione frowned at the words.

 _Well. What will you do now, Hermione Granger?_ Asked the writing.

The obvious, sane and completely reasonable choice would be to hand the book in. She knew he was the Heir of Slytherin. She knew he was dangerous.

But she couldn't help remembering what had happened when they'd tried, last year, to tell the teachers about the philosopher's stone. Even Professor McGonagall, in whom Hermione had the greatest faith of just about any Hogwarts Professor, had not been open to believing them. She hadn't even tried, actually, to determine whether or not they were onto something.

And Voldemort had very nearly gotten his hands on the stone, and thus eternal life.

She knew what she was _supposed_ to do, but...

She wasn't sure.

Hermione closed the book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I appreciate your comments.


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione put off handing the diary into a teacher under the guise of “thinking about it” until she could no longer delude herself and had to admit that she was not, in fact, going to hand Tom Riddle’s diary over to anybody.

Her promise to Ginny aside, she did feel as though nobody was likely to take her very seriously unless she, like Tom Riddle, was able to produce an actual person as a suspect. Hermione had never really felt this degree of distrust toward authority figures before and it unsettled her.

She thought about it a lot, even while she was busy with other things. Harry and Ron were frequently happy to entertain themselves with chess - which Ron always won - or discussions about Quidditch or how much homework they’d been given for the holidays.

“Absolute bastard,” Ron muttered one evening, poring over their potions textbook. _“Five feet_ , how can anybody write five feet on _mushrooms_?”

Harry made a sour noise of agreement.

“Honestly, Ron. You wouldn’t have this problem if you’d started at the beginning of the holidays,” Hermione pointed out, feeling exasperated. Her friends’ tempers grew shorter the closer their deadline loomed, which made them increasingly poor company.

It was their own fault, though, so she couldn’t imagine what she’d done to deserve the identical looks she got from Ron and Harry.

“Well,” she said, defensively. “You _wouldn’t_.”

“Is she allowed to say that?” Ron said, sounding put out.

Harry made another wordless noise of frustration and went back to writing.

Hermione rolled her eyes. Boys. Honestly. She went back to her own reading, which was mostly killing time until she could reasonably declare herself tired enough to return to her dorm, and the strange diary she’d left inside.

She _should_ have handed it in. The thought was plaguing her. She couldn’t seem to stop it, even when she should have been thinking about other things. It crept in, uncertain and insidious.

Hermione told herself firmly that she didn’t feel guilty.

She probably _should_ have felt guilty, too. But if nothing else, the diary was her best lead on figuring out who was opening the Chamber of Secrets. As a muggleborn student, she had every right to be looking into the problem - especially when experience told her that her teachers were unlikely to resolve it on their own!

She’d concluded that Tom was the Heir of Slytherin. However, that led her to the problem of how he had managed to open the Chamber from inside a fifty year old diary.

...which led her right back to the curiosity she’d had weeks ago.

Hermione still couldn’t figure out what the diary actually _was_. It should have been impossible to insert as much thought and memory into it as the diary had. Tom was critical, he was thoughtful, he was sharp as a tack and he was complicated. This wasn’t the limited sentience that could be provided by a standard charm, and it didn’t seem like Tom Riddle was the ghost of a dead student stuck in an object.

Hermione’s thoughts had been leaning increasingly toward the scientific, which she knew was probably a mistake, since wizards didn’t have much traffic with science - or, really, common sense.

At this point, she was becoming steadily resolved to just ask Tom. She knew that there was a good chance he’d lie, but she could always check his information later and it cost her nothing to just ask...

She shut her book with a snap. “I’m going to bed,” she announced, ignoring the sour looks Ron and Harry shot her. No doubt they’d be up until the wee hours of the morning finishing up their essays for Snape.

“It’s only eight-thirty,” said Harry, looking from his parchment to his watch and back.

“I got up very early,” Hermione said vaguely. The boys made vague good night noises at her, and Hermione climbed up to the second year girls’ dorm with a sense of anticipation curling in her belly.

Tom, however, was frustratingly unhelpful.

_What do you think I am?_ he asked her, and Hermione would have sworn she could almost feel his smile.

She ground her teeth. She hated not being able to find answers, and she didn’t like being teased about it either.

Hermione didn’t write anything for a few long moments. She had theories, of course she did, but she wasn’t sure of any of them and she felt as though he was just waiting for her to say something stupid so he could make fun of her.

_You don’t even have any ideas?_ Another long pause, and then the writing continued. _Not so clever after all, then._

_I have ideas,_ she shot messily back before she could think better of it. _But I don’t see why I should tell you any of them!_

_Oh, I see. You’re insecure,_ he wrote back plainly.

She gave the book a resentful look - but even as she did so, she was wary of his insight.

Hermione tried very hard to be honest with herself about her own flaws and feelings. She didn’t think she was terribly obvious about her feelings - and she didn’t like how quickly Tom picked up on them.

The boys she spent her time around barely noticed her unless she was yelling.

She frowned at the book.

_Hermione_ , wrote Tom with his ink flowing soft and even across the page, _I wouldn’t expect an adult wizard to get it right on the first guess._

A long pause.

_Why did Slytherin hate muggleborns?_ Hermione wrote.

_Well_ , wrote Tom, apparently unconcerned with the change of topic, _I don’t see why I should tell you any of it._

Hermione snorted softly. But then - what could it hurt, really, to tell him her few theories? She sighed.

_There’s a spell that lets you put a ghost in an object like this, but for various reasons I don’t think you’re a ghost,_ she wrote carefully. _You’d have to have killed yourself and then somehow continued the magic to seal yourself away. It doesn’t make a lot of sense._

_I’m not especially inclined toward suicide,_ the diary agreed.

Hermione nodded to herself, and then went on to explain. If she was trying to do such a thing, she’d use a kind of code, written into the book as charms, producing a kind of Asimovian positronic brain as articulated by magic, rather than by machine.

_You’d have to come up with a way to safely layer that many charms_ , she wrote confidently, _but I think you might be able to do it with runes._

_That’s... clever,_ wrote Tom, and Hermione felt her own lips curl just a little at his surprise.

_Completely wrong of course_ , he added after the ink had been absorbed back into his pages, _but clever in concept._

Hermione scowled. He was too insightful not to know how rude he was being.

_You wouldn’t be able to do it with runes, though. They’re not flexible enough. They have fixed meanings._

She frowned. She didn’t know enough about runes to really dispute that, but thinking about it logically she wasn’t sure he was right.

_Runes are just symbols representing concepts,_ Hermione pointed out. _They’re not inherently magical, are they?_

_Yes and no,_ he responded, and went on to explain the mechanism by which culture and belief could provide a kind of power of their own own, how with millenia of magical people believing in them they were imbued with significance beyond their shape.

_Can’t that be done artificially?_

_In theory. The discipline you’re looking for is called grafimancy. It’s a great deal of effort and study for minimal gain, so I’ve never looked into it._ There was a pause. _It would be too much work to be practical for constructing something like my diary_ , he wrote finally.

Hermione reached for a scrap of parchment and wrote ‘grafimancy’, mentally adding it to the growing list of things she had to look up.

When she returned her attention to the diary, it was blank and empty, and she rolled her eyes, closed the book and went to bed. Clearly, their discussion was over for now. Despite how she’d gotten nothing very useful out of him at all, talking to Tom was... challenging. Interesting.

He knew so very much about magic. She ran her fingers through her dark, unruly hair and contemplated silently how easy it might be to forget that he was dangerous.

And rude, sometimes. That was almost comforting in its own way, though - when he was insulting, she wasn’t so suspicious of his motives.

What that said about her personality, Hermione wasn’t sure. She snorted softly to herself before turning the candles out with a lazy wave of her wand.

Despite her wariness, she fell easily into the pattern of writing to Tom over the following days. She had a time set aside for it in the late evenings, and never removed his diary from her dorm room.

The word ‘grafimancy’ was burning a hole in her brain the longer she left off researching it, but she knew that her homework - very nearly finished, actually - and her research into how a personality stuck in a book might, somehow, leap out and start attacking muggleborns were both more important.

“Have you turned up anything?” Harry asked one morning over breakfast. Harry was the only one of the three of them who was remotely useful in the early mornings, and Hermione and Ron both looked up from their food with a squint and an uncertain, nonverbal response.

After a second Hermione gathered he was talking to her, and she blinked and tried to kick her brain into gear. “Oh,” she said. Then, a frustrated sigh. “Not really, actually. I mean, there’s arrest records for when the Chamber was last opened, but --”

“ _What_?” Ron sat up straighter.

“-- _but_ ,” Hermione ignored his interruption with a glare, “I really don’t think they’re useful to us.”

“Who was it?” Harry asked immediately.

Hermione rubbed her forehead, contemplating her eggs and toast. “Hagrid,” she said finally.

“ _Hagrid_?” Harry repeated, looking poleaxed.

“Well, I told you, I don’t think they’re right.”

“So he wasn’t arrested for opening the Chamber, then?” Ron prompted.

“No, he was,” Hermione shook her head. “But I think they were wrong. Can you really see Hagrid setting a monster loose on the school?”

“Yes,” said Harry and Ron in unison.

“Remember Fluffy?” Ron muttered.

“Norbert,” Harry countered.

“Okay,” Hermione relented, because of course she’d thought the same thing herself, “but not -- not like this.”

They exchanged wary glances. “Well,” said Harry. “I can’t think Hagrid would hurt any student on _purpose_ ,” he allowed.

“Right,” Hermione agreed. “So I found out that Hagrid got expelled for opening the Chamber, but not anything relevant to what’s actually going on now. Except that...”

“Except?” Harry raised his eyebrows.

“Well, they might come to take him in, mightn’t they?” she said, brow furrowing. She hadn’t really considered it before, but now it seemed only logical. Actually, she was astonished they hadn’t done so already.

“To Azkaban?” Ron looked a little sick.

Hermione nodded grimly. “Maybe Professor Dumbledore will be able to work around it,” she said dubiously. She knew the old headmaster had a lot of pull in ministry circles, but she wasn’t sure how far that might actually extend.

_In my time,_ Riddle told her later that night, _quite far. Although that was directly following his defeat of Grindelwald. His reputation has never flown higher than it did then._

He refused to comment any further on Hagrid or how he’d been framed.

_Is that because you feel guilty?_ Hermione asked. It felt a little spiteful of her to be so direct, but it was just so tremendously unfair that Riddle had allowed Hagrid to take the fall for him in such a way.

_Guilty?_ Responded Tom, and she could actually feel how puzzled the word was. _Guilt is self-indulgent and pointless,_ he informed her loftily.

_So it doesn’t matter at all that you got another student expelled for something **you** did?_

_No. Why should it? He was keeping man-eating monsters in the castle. That it was the wrong man-eating monster is hardly relevant._

And from there he simply changed the subject entirely.

Unfortunately, the new subject he picked up was at least as interesting, so she felt no urgency to return to the previous one. Tom wrote that Salazar Slytherin’s dislike of muggleborn students was documented in his old journals, which were kept by the head of Slytherin.

For all that she would defend Snape as a good potion-maker and an... adequate teacher, Hermione didn’t think she could persuade him to lend books written by Salazar Slytherin to a Gryffindor student. She wasn’t in the habit of getting detentions for no reason.

She contemplated stealing them for a second. It worked with the potions ingredients...

Of course, now he was on guard and terribly suspicious, and she didn’t doubt he’d updated his locks, too.

It only took a little prodding to get Tom to explain instead.

_Muggleborns themselves are not actually the problem according to Slytherin,_ he wrote after a second, a statement which completely baffled Hermione.

She got no further than the first stroke of her quill before he scribbled, _are you going to listen or not_? in a swift, irritable scrawl.

_Sorry_ , she wrote.

_Salazar Slytherin’s ideas are truly only the starting point for the discrimination against muggleborns, but his view is definitely the root of it. He believed that the education of muggleborns in magic was a terrible idea because, according to him, they were little more than muggles with magic._

This was even further baffling, because of course they were muggles with magic. That was the fundamental difference between muggles and magical people, after all. What else was there?

_Culture, religion, tradition, morality - all these things are different among people raised with magical traditions. You must also understand that the Church held a great deal of sway with the muggle population, and following the Norman Conquest, the French insisted upon many changes to the church in the British Isles, which brought it into line with edicts from Rome. There was a certain amount of upheaval during the changeover, but the following generations of muggles were exposed to very conservative views about magic._

Hermione contained a wince. She knew some people, back in her own home town, who were quite religious. Her father referred to them as ‘God-people,’ with a bored roll of his eyes, and was often silenced by a jab of her mother’s elbow, but even her mother was occasionally heard to mutter ‘Lord, save us from religion,’ to the evening news.

_While some things are necessary for a witch or a wizard, things like household charms and account keeping,_ Tom went on, _Slytherin took the view that there were also things that were important: culture, religion, character, integrity. To a greater or lesser degree, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff agreed with him. However, they, along with Gryffindor, believed that it was outside the school’s purview to teach such things, or to insist upon the character of the students they accepted. The role of the school was to teach what was necessary, and character was to be dictated by society and adult witches and wizards_

Hermione frowned. _So... muggleborns brought with them their ideas and their culture, and Slytherin didn’t like new ideas?_

_Slytherin didn’t like their ideas about magic_ , Tom corrected. _I doubt he much cared about their ideas regarding agriculture and architecture, but a great deal of wizarding culture relies upon things that the church was, in those days, trying very hard to quash. They spread their fear of hellfire and divine retribution to other students, and tensions between muggle and magical communities were already very high._

Hermione gnawed her thumbnail thoughtfully. It did make sense, to a degree, although what she knew about wizarding culture seemed to suggest that it had changed an awful lot since the founders’ era. _Shouldn’t the Statute of Secrecy have made that better then?_

_You’d think,_ responded Tom drily. _It’s actually worse now. Muggleborns are brought into the wizarding world at ten or eleven, and they’re still minors under their parents’ care. The Ministry is quick to acquiesce to pressure from muggles who know about our world, because they have the power to expose it completely. More and more magic is made illegal or regulated because of the constant threat of exposure. So, no, muggleborns are not themselves the problem; muggle society is. Can you imagine what would happen if we were exposed?_

Yes, actually, Hermione could imagine. She felt a little queasy at the thought.

_Magic is not a thing to be licensed and controlled and dissected_ , Tom wrote. His writing came out as though his pen was pressing harder into the paper, which was... interesting. _It is alive, and beautiful, and worthy of respect. The present state of things just shows us all how right Slytherin was._

She’d have to think about that viewpoint more, but she was already pretty certain that no part of that explanation made attacking muggleborn students the right - or even a remotely _reasonable_ \- course of action.

She said as much to Tom, who didn’t seem particularly concerned.

_Most of you deserve it,_ he wrote, hard and jagged.

Hermione slammed the book shut with a snap and threw it at the wall. It made a satisfying smack, but it remained unblemished.

She left it where it fell, rolled out of bed, and went down to the silent common room to read something actually worthwhile. She was unlikely to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

It didn't stop her writing to him, of course.

The unfortunate fact was that Tom Riddle was brilliant, and Hermoine wasn't in the habit of letting brilliant books out of her grasp. There was no end to his magical knowledge, and his understanding of culture and history was beautifully studied.

She learned a lot, and that kept her coming back. Wizarding history, when not taught by Professor Binns, was actually fascinating. Tom veered with unnerving frequency into topics that she was not entirely certain about, ethically speaking.

Like the history of the Dark Arts.

_Well,_ he pointed out when she questioned him,  _it's just information, isn't it? Nobody can make you_ _ **use**_ _dark magic._

_I suppose_ , she said dubiously, her pen dragging.

_Come on, Granger. Do you even know what Dark Magic_ _**is** _ _?_

_Magic used specifically to cause harm to sentient creatures,_ Hermione responded immediately.

_Oh? So why is talking to snakes a Dark Art?_

_It's not,_ Hermione wrote shortly, thinking about the way the school had been treating Harry. She'd been neglecting him a little lately, too caught up in her rummaging through the library and her conversations with Tom. She should make time for him.  _People think it's a Dark Art because Salazar Slytherin could do it, and he's a famous Dark wizard._

_So what is a Dark spell, then?_  Tom wondered.  _Blasting curse? No?_

_You're a corrupting influence,_ she wrote, but she was smiling a little.

_Me?_  he asked.

_Fiendfyre,_  she suggested, ignoring that. Wounded innocence was not a good look on her correspondent, but she expected he knew that.

_To cast fiendfyre and achieve some results is quite easy._ _**Ignis di** _ _is the preferred incantation and the wand movement is extremely simple - it is raised, tip higher than hand. What, then, makes it a Dark spell?_

_You use it to hurt people,_  Hermione wrote.

_You can use a simple fire-making charm to hurt people_ , he pointed out.  _How is fiendfyre different?_

Hermione frowned at her book. She remembered casting a fire-making charm on Professor Snape's robes last year, and she had to admit that if he hadn't put the flames out he would have been burned.

So what, then? Fiendfyre was a lot bigger, she knew that much. But you could cast  _incendio_  as large as you wanted.

_I don't know_ , she admitted after a moment.

_You'll figure it out_ , he said, and Hermione knew that was the end of her lesson. He only rarely gave her straight answers, apparently preferring that she dig through the library and look things up and cobble together answers for herself. As irritating as it occasionally was, Hermione had to admit that she never really forgot the things she learned from Tom after curfew.

_The holidays will be over soon, won't they?_  Tom asked then.

Hermione sighed. She loved her classes, but she had been having a grand old time with the dorm room to herself. Her books had now spilled from her bed into neat piles upon the floor and a stack atop one of her bedside tables. She knew Parvati and Lavender would be annoyed by having to walk around them, and that she'd better get at least some of them back to the library before they returned.

_Yes,_  she wrote back with a little sigh.

_Have you thought about what you'll do when Ginny wants my diary back?_

Hermione frowned.  _She might not want it back_ , she suggested.

_She'll come for it,_  wrote Tom with towering certainty.  _She'll want to see me again._

Hermione frowned.  _And you don't want to talk to her?_

_If I never have to hear about her absurd crush on Harry Potter again it will be too soon,_ he said, writing spiky with displeasure.

Hermione had actually not noticed an absurd crush on Ginny's behalf, but now that she thought about it... Ginny did seem to blush and squeak and disappear awfully quickly when Harry was around. That actually did explain a lot of her behaviour, although she recalled that Ron had explained it away as 'she's just mental.'

Hmm.

She couldn't deny, at any rate, that it was flattering to be preferred. Nobody had ever preferred Hermione's company before. Wanted it, yes, needed it, certainly - but never had she been in a situation where a person looked between her and another person and chosen her specifically.

_I could tell her I handed your diary in, I suppose,_ Hermione suggested after a second.

_And what if she asks a teacher about that?_ Tom pointed out.

She sighed.  _I'll think about it,_  she promised.

Hermione took her own musings to heart over the rest of the holiday period, and she took some time off from the library to spend with Harry and Ron. Ron, she thought, was a terrible influence on Harry's study habits, since despite Harry's evident fascination with magic Ron always managed to persuade him away from his books and out to fly, or to play chess or make a mess doing something asinine.

It was actually something of a surprise to find Harry without Ron, since usually they did pretty much everything together, but find him Hermione did, in the common room and scowling at his holiday homework for Charms.

"No Ron?" she asked, tucking her robes beneath her as she settled on the other side of the table.

"Fred - or George, maybe - wanted him for something," Harry said, shaking his head. "Something about charming Lee's pants?" He looked at her as though she might have heard more about this than he had.

Hermione shook her head, halfway convinced that she didn't actually want to know.

"You haven't been around much," Harry said. He didn't sound that accusing, but Hermione's guilty conscience read more into his comment than he'd probably intended.

"I've been-"

"-in the library," they finished in unison, with Harry smiling. "Yeah," he said. "I know."

Harry was a quiet person, really, when you got him on his own, and that suited Hermione down to the ground. They coexisted in easy silence while he dug through The Standard Book of Spells Grade 2 and Hermione read an old text she'd found on the history of spellcraft.

Then, Harry asked her a question about their Charms homework, and Hermione was only too happy to put her book down and discuss it with him. She wouldn't let him read her essay, but she was happy to talk to him about the theory behind his own.

The year's curriculum had so far covered engorgement, freezing, and memory charm theory, and Hermione found herself explaining the way the basics of each had some simple things in common. These were, of course, what made the spells  _charms_ , rather than, say, transfigurations or other spells.

Sometimes Harry was very oblivious to the basics, and Hermione was frequently surprised that he did as well as he did - there had to be a lot of sheer magical power behind his spells to make up for his abysmal study habits.

She was happy to help, though.

"You actually make that sound really simple," Harry said, frowning at his book.

"Well," said Hermione patiently, "it is."

Harry gave her an exasperated glance, but didn't comment further. They were still talking about charms when they went down for lunch, and there they met Ron. He rolled his eyes at their conversation, but joined in with relative equanimity.

Fred and George appeared midway through the meal with twin smiles on their twin faces, and anybody above first year knew quite clearly that they were up to something. Hermione could only hope that something involved the Slytherins and not  _her_.

Despite her misgivings, the twins were, as usual, extremely insightful about certain aspects of magic, and cheerfully showed the second years the spell necessary to make inanimate objects dance. By the end of lunch, Hermione had her goblet clumsily dancing a waltz with Ron's gravy boat, resulting in an odd mix of pumpkin juice and gravy spilled halfway down the table.

She cleaned this all with a quick spell as Snape stalked past in a sneering snit about something and shoved her wand away guiltily - but Flitwick was following behind him and he leaned in to whisper 'two points to Gryffindor, Miss Granger, for an excellent animation charm' as he went.

Hermione beamed happily across the table at Fred, who winked in response.

The new term arrived and with it came students returning from their holidays at home. Hermione managed to avoid Ginny for a day or two, but she could tell the younger girl was bent on seeking her out and prepared accordingly.

"Come with me," she hissed, catching her between Potions and Transfiguration in one of the corridors and hauling her into the unused second floor loo.

"Were you aware," she said, before Ginny even had a chance to speak, "that this diary was full of Dark magic?"

Ginny stared at the book in her hand and swallowed, looking suddenly pale. "I wasn't when I gave it to you," she said, wringing her hands. "I swear I wasn't, Hermione, I would  _never -_ " Ginny took a deep breath and composed herself. "I spoke to Bill over the holiday."

Hermione crossed her arms. "Bill," she repeated.

"He's my older brother, he works as a curse breaker for Gringotts - he's pretty familiar with, you know, the Dark Arts because of it..." she said 'the Dark Arts' in a voice like she was almost afraid of the words. "He reckons anything that can think for itself like that is terribly dangerous."

"He's right," said Hermione grimly.

"Are you- are you all right?" Ginny asked, stumbling around her words. She looked terribly guilty.

Sympathy overwhelmed Hermione for a second. "Of course I am," she said with a soft huff. "It's fixed, anyway - although it took me half the holidays to find the right ritual, let me tell you," she added.

Ginny blinked. "You  _fixed_  it?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "This," she waved the diary again, "was housing a ghost. There's a spell you can use, and it's terribly dark magic, where you kill a person and trap their essence in an object. Basically a trapped ghost."

Ginny's face went white. "Tom was-?"

Hermione nodded. "Once I figured that out, it was just a matter of finding the right spell to banish a ghost."

"Isn't that really advanced magic?" Ginny wondered, looking at the diary with huge eyes.

Hermione scrunched up her nose. "I don't think it's 'advanced' so much as it's just... you know, it's quite complicated and laborious. There's a lot of fiddly bits. But as long as you follow the instructions it's quite easy to actually do the spell."

"Oh," said Ginny, heaving a relieved sigh. "Thank you."

"Here," Hermione said to her, handing the book over. "You can charm it to write back, you know - safely, I mean. Like with the mirror in the girls' showers."

Ginny looked dubiously at the diary. "They always tell me there's a potion to fix my freckles."

"So charm it to be polite," Hermione suggested, ushering her back out of the toilet.

She was about a minute late for Transfiguration, but since that had never happened before, Professor McGonagall just gave her a stern look and directed her to hand her homework to the front of the room before continuing her lecture.

_I gave her a replica_ , Hermione wrote to the diary that night, feeling pleased with herself and only a little bit guilty for deceiving Ginny.

_How on earth did you replicate my diary?_ Tom wrote back curiously. _Surely you haven't had time to work on that grafimancy idea?_

_No_ , Hermione agreed, thinking longingly of all the work she could be getting done if she was willing to chance waking her housemates.  _Do you remember my first theory, when I found the spell to trap a ghost in an object?_

_Ah. You told her you banished the ghost. Clever_ , wrote Tom, and Hermione felt a distinct thrill at his words.  _And believable. That spell isn't entirely beyond a second year student. You'll have to be certain she doesn't find this diary. Perhaps re-covering is in order?_

_Can you do that?_ Hermione wondered. She had noticed that it seemed almost impossible to damage the diary.

_With permission, certainly. I wasn't about to let people destroy my memory when I enchanted this diary, was I? Who knows who might discover it and, oh, hurl it into walls..._

Hermione didn't flinch.  _I'm never going to feel guilty about that,_ she informed him.

_And I'm never going to apologise_ , he responded.

Well then, thought Hermione.

* * *

Somebody over on ffnet asked me if this was not a romance, was it a mentor fic. It's neither. Please do  _not_  continue reading this if you're looking for a mentor relationship. I made the mistake of being ambiguous about that with Hit The Ground Running.  _This is not a romance. This is not a mentor fic._ Cheers.

Leave me a comment here because I like them. (Shameless, but honest.)

Otherwise, my tumblr is [tozettewrites](https://www.tumblr.com/new/tozettewrites.tumblr.com) - come drop me a line. : )


	5. Chapter 5

There was, Hermione decided, a degree of trust involved in allowing her to re-cover the diary. Tom didn't seem very happy to allow her this liberty, but they both agreed that her ruse with Ginny would not last long if she kept the real diary laying about and looking so very recognisable.

The act of re-covering the book was a fairly suspicious activity since the diary was immune to almost all forms of magic and could not be permanently changed or destroyed with magic at all. Hermione suspected Tom of prevaricating a little on this count - it would take a very arrogant and foolhardy wizard to submit himself to a spell for which there was no counter-spell!

Tom was probably arrogant enough, she thought, but not stupid enough. At any rate, it seemed likely that he would choose to withhold information from her about the mechanism by which he might be destroyed.

Hermione had, on reflection, determined not to take it personally. She liked Tom, but she knew he was a very dangerous companion and she didn't think she'd ever really trust him - and he wasn't stupid enough to trust her, either. He was clever and suspicious, and to a certain extent distrust was simply practical.

While she was sure nobody would be that suspicious of her re-covering an old or damaged book - especially since the rest of the girls in her dorm had long since given up trying to understand her fascination with the library - it would certainly seem strange enough to draw questions that she was using muggle methods instead of charms.

So, for the first time in a month, Hermione removed the diary from the girls' dorm and took it with her into the school proper. It was sort of nice to be free of that place anyway, since Lavender's perfume experiments were growing bolder and more headache-inducing over time.

Moaing Myrtle's toilet was where Hermione had brewed her Polyjuice potion, and since that seemed to have gone completely undetected it seemed like the ideal place to work at recovering the book.

Listening to Myrtle sob two cubicles over wasn't that conducive to concentrating, but the whole business reminded Hermione rather a lot of some of her summer craft projects with her father. She was also surprised at how straightforward it seemed to be.

 _Not really_ , Tom responded when she wondered if it would be a problem that her covering was unlikely to look perfectly professional.  _Mass printing of books with presses is actually quite new to the Wizarding world._

Even the glue she used had to be non-magical, which left any craft supplies that might be hanging around Hogwarts completely out of the question. Tom was very disgruntled at the prospect of having his diary covered with a protein glue Hermione cooked up in a ladies' toilet, but he didn't complain nearly as much as she'd actually expected.

 _It is what it is_ , he said disgustedly when she pointed this out.

 _It's nothing awful_ , she tried to reassure him.  _Gelatin, milk and water, really_.

 _Don't remind me_ , he responded unhappily.  _Did you come up with a suitably boring title?_

 _Annals of the Department of International Magical Cooperation's Lobby for Standardised Cauldron Bottoms 1977 - 1990,_  Hermione wrote, keeping a careful eye on her boiling milk. She felt that her title was actually quite inspired in its total, mind-numbing boringness. The combination of that title with a very low-grade concealment charm - necessarily weak enough to avoid Filch's Secrecy Sensor - would be sufficient to deter anybody, Hermione felt.

 _That will do, I suppose,_ Tom said, once Hermione had managed to re-cover the diary in dove grey linen and carefully inked its title. The whole book remained intact beneath the linen, but Tom had informed her that it was virtually indestructible so there would be no way to actually replace the original cover.

 _Can you tell the difference?_ Hermione wondered while she vanished the mess she'd made with her cauldron its ugly glue smells. She was often curious as to how much Tom could tell about his surroundings, since he didn't really seem to have eyes or nerves or - anything like that. Any information she could glean from him about his nature would, she felt, ultimately help her figure out what he actually was.

 _Of course I can_ , he scoffed, and Hermione rolled her eyes at his tone and stowed the diary away in her book bag before leaving the toilets.

She almost ran into Harry and Ron, who were walking through that very corridor, bickering good-naturedly about the classes they were planning to take as third years.

"What on earth were you doing in there?" Harry wondered, peering over her shoulder into the toilet.

Hermione shrugged uncomfortably. "I was worried we'd left something," she said after a second. "I was just checking to make sure it was all cleaned up - we left in rather a hurry, if you remember," she pointed out drily, thinking about her awful time as a cat-person.

The ears she could stand, but being unable to read for long periods of time was  _terrible_.

Ron and Harry shared a disgruntled look. "I can't believe Malfoy's not the Heir," Ron muttered."He must know  _something_ about it - something he's not telling Crabbe and Goyle. I mean, would you trust them with something like that? What if they let something slip? They're not exactly geniuses, are they?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "Maybe," she said, but she was doubtful.

"Any luck in the library?" Harry asked hopefully.

Hermione resisted the urge to tell them to crack open a book themselves and shook her head. Really, unless they were encouraged by a healthy dose of desperation and the threat of a teacher's wrath, both were more distraction than help when she was trying to research something. "I can't even think of a monster that  _could_  cause petrification," she sighed. "Much less a likely one. At this point, I'm actually contemplating just tracing Slytherin's line all the way through his family."

"That sounds about as interesting as listening to Snape talk for an hour," Ron muttered.

Harry made a noise, apparently reminded that they did indeed have their potions class next.

Hermione shot him a sympathetic smile. "At least you have all your homework done," she said bracingly.

"Yeah," said Harry, in a tone that suggested he didn't find that as comforting as she had expected, "at least."

This turned out to be completely moot, of course. Snape split the Gryffindors and Slytherins up, leaving Harry to share a cauldron with Malfoy. When Harry's homework "accidentally" caught fire, Snape watched indifferently and took ten points from Gryffindor for Harry drawing his wand in potions class to put it out.

"And a detention, I think," Snape added silkily as the students all packed up, some twenty minutes later, "for Mr Potter, who seems to feel that he is above submitting completed homework on time."

Hermione was deeply annoyed by this ridiculous injustice, but she, unlike Ron and Harry, had a better capacity to keep it to herself. She repressed it ruthlessly, handed in a phial of her own potion, and hauled Ron and Harry out before they could say or - Merlin forbid - do something stupid.

"Just let him be," she hissed, pulling them along until Ron dug his heels in and stopped allowing her.

On another occasion, Hermione might have gone to Professor McGonagall with her anger at Snape - she was the Deputy Headmistress, and she certainly had a much stronger sense of fair play than did Snape. Unfortunately, she was also very aware that any interference on McGonagall's behalf would give Snape just the ammunition he wanted to prove that Harry Potter received special treatment at Hogwarts.

(Harry did, in fact, receive special treatment at Hogwarts, Hermione might have pointed out - from  _Snape_ , if from nobody else.)

Instead she sighed, commiserated, and persuaded Ron not to get himself a detention as well by leading him away from the temptation of yelling into Snape's greasy face.

When she finally got back to Tom later that evening, Hermione asked,  _Don't you get bored, then, if you don't have anybody to talk to all day?_

 _Sometimes,_  he admitted after a second.  _If the diary isn't written in, my personality remains dormant in it - it's a bit like sleeping, although that's an imperfect analogy. You might think of it as me being 'awake' once the diary has been written in, and 'asleep' if it hasn't,_ he suggested.

 _Like hibernation,_ Hermione mused. The other girls were in the common room, so the sound of her quill scratching was loud in her silent dorm.

 _A little,_ Tom agreed.

 _That makes sense, actually,_ Hermione wrote. She contemplated how that might have been achieved in the spellcasting for a few moments, but she was honestly no closer to figuring out how any part of Tom Riddle's diary had been created, so it was pretty much a lost cause.

She  _was_  sure that he had something to do with the opening of the Chamber, though, even if she couldn't quite figure out how - all reports said that a person had to be specifically of the blood of Salazar Slytherin to access the Chamber, and that meant, well - blood! Tom, as a disembodied personality stored inside a book, did not  _have_  blood.

So perhaps he was not lying when he told her he hadn't done it himself - but there were other possibilities. She knew he'd gone to Hogwarts, and his memory showed that he'd been a Slytherin in the time period when Hagrid was at Hogwarts - in his fifth or sixth year when Hagrid was expelled.

Hermione tapped her fingertips against the page of the diary.

There had to be something linking the two. There always was.

Tom Riddle was the Heir of Slytherin. He admitted it, and even though she knew she couldn't trust his word on its own, the evidence did fit that interpretation. That was the reason he'd been so good at framing Hagrid, obviously. He'd known that the attacks would stop once Hagrid was removed because  _he_  was controlling them.

It had occurred to Hermione that even if he wasn't directly responsible for opening the Chamber this time, somebody from his line had to be doing it - which just meant that she needed to track his blood line from the forties to the present time period. With any luck there would be a child of Tom Riddle at Hogwarts now and she'd be able to find out who it was. She'd already looked up the present students and discovered that none of them were named 'Riddle' so her next best bet was to see if she could find records of a child under another name, a marriage or a relation in the female line.

Digging through dusty yearbooks, old records and newspaper clippings was a tedious pastime, even for somebody who loved books as much as Hermione did.

"Are you seriously looking to trace Slytherin's entire line?" Ron asked while Harry was serving detention with Filch (for something he'd said during detention with Snape, apparently). Ron gingerly leaned over her shoulder and turned the page on her worn copy of the Pure Blood Directory.

"Well, nothing else has worked," Hermione murmured, only half paying attention to him. Her nose was buried in a Daily Prophet from the 1940s, looking for public NEWT rankings.

Ron scratched his cheek.

"D'you need help?" he asked with an expression that was determined, but also rather grim.

Hermione considered that for all of half a second and then shook her head, smiling slightly. She was a little amused but unsurprised when Ron looked like he'd been pardoned on the walk to the gallows.

"Alright," he said, trying and failing not to sound terribly relieved. He settled in at an adjacent table to work on a last-minute Charms assignment. His quill scratched in the companionable silence of the library, stopping occasionally while he measured inches of parchment and cursed under his breath.

It was twenty minutes before he said, "Hermione-"

"No," she said flatly.

"You don't even know what I was going to ask."

"Quiet," hissed Madam Pince, sweeping past like an oversize vulture. Her eyes flicked toward the work Hermione was doing and her expression twisted. "Those are delicate, Miss Granger," she cautioned as though she greatly wanted to take the old papers off her.

"I'll be careful," Hermione said with as much sincerity as she could muster, and then rolled her eyes when Pince disappeared to break up a couple of sixth years making out in the Defence section.

"You can't read my Charms homework. If you'd done it earlier, you wouldn't be scrambling now," Hermione whispered warningly to Ron once they were alone again.

He heaved a huge, put-upon sigh and got up to find an actual library book on Charms.

As much as Hermione would like to have been able to say that she was an attentive and dogged researcher, the truth was that her attention waned every couple of hours. Looking through records was a tedious business. She felt a little guilty about it, but she ended up interspersing her research into potential Heirs with more interesting stuff - mostly checking other things she'd spoken with Tom about.

It wasn't actually that easy to find treatises on wizarding law and customs, and certainly not for places outside the UK, but digging through the sociology shelves produced a couple of interesting books on France and at least one on Scandinavia. (Her eyes drifted toward a book that was titled 'A Nife and Accurate Sociological Hiftory of the Wizarding States of Africa,' which seemed at least as interesting, but she didn't reach for it. She had more than enough on her plate.)

She discovered that, contrary to what she'd believed, very few of the Dark Arts were actually illegal - the Unforgivables were illegal, for instance, only when cast upon beings. The Killing Curse was routinely used in the slaughter of animals for meat and hide because it was a more humane death than a Severing Charm to the throat, and could not be blocked by an animal's natural magic - dragon fire, for example.

What was considered a Dark spell or potion also seemed to change according to where one was in Europe. In Finland, for example, it was perfectly acceptable for an auror to contact the spirits of the dead through the weird and risky practice of a discipline called necromancy when conducting a murder investigation. The Finnish regulations surrounded necromancy were actually quite fascinating - a necromancer was legally required to have a spotter, for one. Odd.

 _Useless discipline,_ Tom scoffed when she reported her readings.  _The best one can do with necromancy is to raise the bodies of the restless dead and order them about a bit._

 _Why,_  Hermione wondered, squinting,  _would anybody want to?_

 _Grindelwald was supposed to want to make an army of them,_ Tom said after a pause.

 _Scary,_ Hermione granted,  _but I suspect an army of wizards and witches would have been much more capable._

 _It might have been a cost-benefit analysis thing,_ he wrote back.  _You don't have any supply-line problems with an army you don't have to feed._

Hermione scrunched up her nose, disgusted by the idea.  _But imagine the smell_ , she wrote.

Tom did not reply, but she got a distant sense of amusement from the page upon which her hand rested. That happened occasionally - that she could feel something, rather than read something, from the diary.

The library became even more of a second home to Hermione than usual as the new year moved inexorably on. Madame Pince seemed disgruntled by Hermione's choice of reading material and very occasionally made an effort to redirect her attention from the different uses of magic across Europe - which of course had the opposite impact of making her yet more determined to research this particular area instead.

 _So,_ asked Tom finally,  _what did you find out about Fiendfyre?_

 _Not a lot_ , Hermione admitted.  _Detailed information on it is hardly available in the general collection. But in Goshawk's Decidedly Non-Standard Book of Spells: Weird Spell Theories, she says that you have to be really angry to cast Fiendfyre. Is that the difference?_

 _Pretty much,_ Tom agreed.  _The purpose of Fiendfyre isn't necessarily to hurt people, but it is to destroy by burning - it was invented to destroy certain artefacts, actually. Destruction and frustration are quite closely linked, but both anger and frustration are very difficult emotions to control._

Hermione frowned. She'd never heard about the invention of Fiendfyre, and this was one area where she couldn't look up the information. Since it was illegal in the UK, information on that spell was carefully controlled - and asking somebody else would certainly cause questions to be asked.

 _The traditional delineation between "Dark" magic and magic used day-to-day isn't really about harm,_ Tom went on.  _Or - well, not about harming other people. The reason it's considered so dangerous is because it requires a great deal of emotional discipline to cast correctly._

Hermione frowned. She had read, in one of her Defence texts, about a torture curse called the Cruciatus, and how it required a great desire for pain and violence on behalf of the user. No lesser emotion would work. But...

 _What happens if you don't have the control?_  she wrote.

 _Fiendfyre will kill you,_ Tom returned, rather indifferently.  _Other spells may not work at all. Certain magic might backfire completely and other kinds will be only partially successful._

So, in order to work with the Dark Arts, Hermione surmised, practitioners had to maintain a well of rage and violence without losing control of it.

 _That sounds like a horrible way to live,_ she wrote with some disgust.

 _People have feelings whether or not they want them,_ Tom wrote,  _Dark magic just teaches you to control them and make them useful. Emotional discipline is hardly a curse,_ he sneered.

Hermione still frowned. It didn't seem like a very good thing, to her.

 _Do you still find the theory interesting?_ Tom asked after several long seconds.

There was something sly and dangerous about the question that set alarm bells to ringing in Hermione's head. She didn't respond for a few long moments.

 _If you do_ , continued Tom, ignoring her evident uncertainty,  _you might look up other spells which require strong feelings to cast._

Hermione closed the book. Not tonight, she thought, rubbing her forehead. She wasn't thinking about this tonight.

Despite her challenging and occasionally difficult conversations with Tom, Hermione's search for the Heir remained paramount.

Among other things, being the Heir of Slytherin meant that Tom had to be able to speak to snakes - and so too would any of his children, because it was definitely a hereditary trait. She hit the library the next morning, tired and determined to ignore any nagging urges to go look up much older defence texts and how they defined the Dark Arts.

If Tom had been sixteen when the Chamber was last opened, he'd be - what, mid-sixties?

How hard, Hermione thought with some frustration, could it be to track down a sixty year old wizard who could talk to snakes?

It wasn't until she was sleepily perusing  _Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ , looking for useful references to parseltongue at a quarter to curfew that she saw it and everything -  _everything_  - in her head clicked into place.

There was only one parselmouth in the twentieth century, excepting Harry.

A terrible certainty formed in her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay cute cakes and cool cats, this seems like a good place to pause and remind you all that this is an alternative universe story. :)
> 
> Otherwise, drop me a comment and... tell me if you'd rather go to this story's iteration of Beauxbatons, Durmstrang or Hogwarts! : D


	6. Chapter 6

Tom Riddle was Voldemort.

Hermione's train of thought came screeching to a halt. For months -  _months! -_ she had been writing to Lord Voldemort, the Dark wizard so terrible that the entire world refused to say his name. He was personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds and he was the cause of thousands more.

Hermione put her book down and rather mechanically went to a quiet corner of the library to sit down.

Voldemort.

She rubbed her forehead and then her eyes and then she ran her fingers through her hair until they got stuck in its tangles and curls.

Her conclusion did not change with reflection. Nor did it become any less alarming.

Lord Voldemort was living in Hermione's school trunk.

It was... concerning.

"There's nothing for it," she muttered. She'd have to hand the diary in. It was certainly going to be awkward explaining to Ginny, if she ever found out, that Hermione had lied to her. Harry and Ron would also definitely be annoyed - possibly hurt - that she hadn't shared such a large secret with them.

But she couldn't very well keep it, and, well, perhaps Professor McGonagall would know what to do.

Maybe. Possibly.

She frowned.

Honestly, none of the teachers here had a very good track record with regard to dealing with threats to the students - the fact that Hagrid was ever allowed to keep Fluffy inside the castle was more than evidence enough for that, thank you. Why, hadn't he been expelled for keeping a man-eating monster in the castle back in 1943? How was this different?

Because, Hermione thought, feeling a little queasy, he was an adult now, and adults were allowed to be incompetent and reckless; children were not.

What was Dumbledore even doing, she wondered, keeping the Philosopher's Stone in the middle of a school full of children and then casually announcing that the corridor containing it was off limits?

Why had McGonagall, upon learning that they had been clever enough to work out that the object in the third floor corridor was the Philosopher's Stone, refused to listen to any of their other information?

Maybe Hermione could give the diary to somebody from the Ministry... but if anything, the Ministry was even less competent and trustworthy than the Hogwarts staff. The Daily Prophet might have been full of tripe, but there was often a core of baffling truth in their stories.

Hermione swallowed, wondering if there was actually anybody she even knew of who might be capable of dealing with Lord Voldemort's diary.

She put off doing anything about the diary.

Harry noticed her nervous and distressed mood. Hermione was too preoccupied to hide it from him anyway. "Er," he said delicately at dinner - or, as delicately as Harry ever got, which was not very - "is everything all right?"

"Do you ever feel," Hermione said slowly, peering into her dinner as though it contained the answer to some weighty existential question, "like you're the only person in the world who can be relied upon? At all?"

Harry's gaze went distant for a second. "Yeah," he said in a voice gone strangely grim. "I know that feeling."

Hermione rubbed her forehead again. "The teachers here aren't always very good, Harry," she said softly.

Ron, having only recently tuned in, snorted. "Well, yeah, look at Lockhart," he pointed out. "And I mean, Snape's just as bad in his own way - and him they keep inviting back year after year."

Hermione's lips curled. "Very true."

Harry was looking at her, though, a strange and speculative look. "You know," he said finally, "I don't feel like that nearly as often because, well, you guys are here."

Hermione blinked.

Ron looked up from his mashed potatoes.

Harry shrugged awkwardly and went back to his food. "I mean... it was a lot harder, not having any friends. You know?"

"Yeah," Hermione agreed.

Ron's puzzled expression featured cheeks stuffed with mashed potato, so he looked a lot like a confused chipmunk.

Hermione grinned at him. She still didn't have a solution, but she felt better about not having one. She'd been doing fine just like this for months, after all, and writing to Tom - to Lord Voldemort - hadn't hurt her at all. Confused her, sure; hurt her, no. She put it out of her mind for now. "So," she said cheerfully, "does either of you need help making a study plan for exams?"

"Er," said Harry, just as Ron said, "Well..." and they both scrambled to talk over each other to avoid facing the necessity of actually doing any schoolwork.

The familiarity of it made Hermione feel a lot better.

She didn't stop thinking about it, though.

It wasn't absolutely time sensitive, so Hermione avoided the diary for several days, using them to think the situation through.

The truth was, she didn't trust the staff of Hogwarts to  _do_  anything about the situation. They might even give him the opening he needed to continue doing whatever it was he did to open the Chamber again.

Which, well... Tom didn't honestly seem like a  _good_  person, but neither did he seem like a monster. How, Hermione wondered, had he gone from the sixteen year old in the diary to the manifestation of pure malice he was regarded as by the 1990s?

_Why did you open the Chamber?_ she asked eventually, curiosity having gotten the better of her. She felt unaccountably nervous writing in the diary now, even though nothing had really changed.

_To unleash Slytherin's monster and eradicate muggle filth from the school, obviously,_  he responded.  _What kind of a question is that?_

Hermione refused to become emotionally involved in the exchange.  _But what made you think that was a good idea?_

_I have enough experience with muggles,_ said Tom loftily,  _to know I don't want their culture infecting decent people._

"Hmm," said Hermione to herself, and changed the subject to the emotional requirements for casting Unforgivables. While the spells themselves were fairly disturbing, the theory behind the Dark Arts was quite fascinating.

Tracking down the history of Lord Voldemort was nearly impossible, not least because nobody wanted to write about him by name. Finding out more about Tom Marvolo Riddle was a different problem entirely, and one Hermione found herself more than equal to.

His correspondence was sent to a muggle orphanage for most of the years of his education at Hogwarts, and from there Hermione had to switch to muggle methods of gathering information, since magical people were almost as oblivious to muggles as muggles were to witches and wizards.

There were no telephones and certainly no computers, so Hermione was forced to send post via school owl to a relay station in Hogsmeade, where they stamped and posted her letters to their muggle addresses for a small fee.

The downside of the process was of course that she did not get a response for a week, but she busied herself with her studies, and with soothing Harry's uncertainties over the opening of the Chamber without actually giving anything away.

"It's been months," she pointed out when he came to her in the library to ask how her search was going, "perhaps something has happened, and the Heir isn't able to petrify anybody else?"

"Come on, Hermione," said Harry, "when have we ever been that lucky?"

She thought about trolls and three-headed dogs and broomsticks that twisted in mid-air. She sighed. "I'm working on it," she assured him, holding up her book -  _A History of the Dark Arts in Late Antiquity_.

Harry's eyes glazed just looking at the title. "Okay," he said.

She smiled. "How are you, anyway? Are you still..." she glanced sideways, checking to make sure nobody was too close, "hearing voices?"

Harry frowned. "Not recently," he admitted. "Probably a good thing."

"I'd say so, yes," Hermione agreed mildly, but it did make her think. She wondered if his hearing things really was connected to the attacks?

She thought of asking Tom, remembered that he was Voldemort, and decided against it. Heaven only knew how much information she'd given him already, and with how reluctant she was to give up the diary-

Hermione blinked.

Ginny had been very reluctant, too. She'd given it to Hermione only after persuading her to promise she'd take care of him.

But weeks later, after she'd been separated from the book, she'd seemed almost unconcerned about its fate.

Oh, she thought then. Tom was terribly, terribly clever, wasn't he? Like a veil being drawn from her eyes, as soon as Hermione became aware of the compulsion it... dropped away. Its strength had been in subtlety, not power.

She slammed her book shut, excused herself and ignored Harry's wide-eyed look, heading deep into the charms shelves.

It took her three hours to be reasonably certain that there were no more compulsions on her - she rid herself of one, almost accidentally, before she realised that it was a very old one built into Hogwarts to prevent her from providing many details of her time there to muggles, which was...

"Huh," she muttered.

There was a creeping insidiousness to Tom's compulsion that she almost had to admire for its subtlety. Its design was very nearly beautiful, strengthening and weakening existing aspects of a person's character as it drew him or her inexorably under Tom's control - which was increased, of course, by writing in the diary.

Hermione had saved herself a lot of anguish, she suspected, by never removing the diary from her dorm room. She spent most of the day away from it.

The weakness of using compulsions was that once somebody became suspicious of them, they were rendered less effective. With her eyes wide open, Hermione could see where she'd been influenced - her increased distrust of authority figures, her willingness to give credence to things Tom wrote - enough to check them, at any rate, instead of dismissing them. She'd  _listened_  when he told her why Slytherin was right about muggleborns.

She was on the verge of handing the book straight to Professor McGonagall, feeling nervous and guilty about it, when an owl from Hogsmeade arrived with her mail.

The letter she had in response to her query into Wool's Orphanage was from a sister organisation, explaining that the charitable group who had run the orphanage had since closed down. There was some promotional material attached to the letter, but mostly that was just advertising for their convent.

The letter itself was short and to the point. Wool's Orphanage had been run by a splinter group of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and had been closed down in the late 1970s not due to legal reform like many of the closures in the 50s, but due to police investigation... which the writer insisted she was unable to comment on, as evidence was still being compiled.

"Huh," said Hermione slowly.

The news reports on the investigation - photocopies on chemically treated paper, which were so strange to see at Hogwarts - were enclosed, however, and Hermione wondered if perhaps Tom's attitude was... difficult, but not beyond her ability to understand.

It was probably telling that although she felt clearer and less confused about the whole issue, Hermione still wondered if the staff at Hogwarts could truly be trusted. Tom was manipulative and a little vicious and self-serving to a fault, but no worse than many of the Slytherins in Hermione's year - and certainly smarter than all of the students and most of the staff.

Maybe it was unfair, she thought, to judge the sixteen year old in the diary for crimes committed some thirty years later.

That didn't make her any less angry, of course.

_So_ , she wrote in the diary that evening, resentful and reckless and determined,  _it's still you opening the Chamber._

_Don't be ridiculous,_  he responded blithely,  _I am stuck in a diary, Granger. I can't get out._

_No,_ she agreed,  _but you can control people outside the diary, can't you?_

There was a long pause.

_Ah, Hermione Granger,_ said the writing, smooth and oddly regretful, _I did say you had the aptitude for intrigue, if not the discretion for it. Sometimes it's hard to believe you're really a mudblood._

And then Hermione's heart raced because  _what if she'd miscalculated, what if she'd done everything wrong,_ and - everything went black.

It... didn't last.

Hermione's watch said the black-out had lasted for about half a minute, and she hadn't moved from her spot on her bed in her dorm. There was a splash of spilled ink on her bed and in the diary.

Her hands shook but she smiled grimly.

"Are you all right?" Parvati asked from across the room. She'd been caught up in reading something of her own, one of a series of novels about a witch who was a ghost detective. Hermione's sudden slump and knocking over her things must have alarmed her into paying attention, because she was getting up to come over by the time Hermione was properly aware once more.

"Yes," Hermione said immediately, rubbing one eye and closing her book. "Sorry. I think I just need a break." She cleaned the ink from the sheets with a wave of her wand.

"Can't imagine why. What a riveting read: 'The Lobby for Standardised Cauldron Bottoms'," Parvati quoted, peering over at the cover of the book. Parvati rolled her eyes. "I really hope that's for history, Granger."

"It's really not that bad," Hermione said earnestly, because she had actually looked up what could happen when cauldron bottoms were too thin and the ramifications from surprise leakages were surprisingly... er, varied. "One wizard in Wiltshire had unicorn dung on his boot and he was trying to brew Amorentia," she added, raising her eyebrows. "The potion leaked everywhere, and then..."

"No," said Parvati, covering her face, hiding a sudden giggle. "That's vile," she said, sounding equal parts horrified and gleeful.

"Well, he was supposedly gored by the stallion before he could get too close to any of the mares," Hermione shrugged.

Parvati's laughter was restrained but genuine.

"I guess maybe I'll take a nap, though," Hermione said after a second.

Parvati glanced dubiously at the piles of books on Hermione's bed, but she didn't comment on them. "Sleep well, then," she said instead and picked up her own novel to get back to it.

Hermione closed her hangings - laboriously, because she did have to get them to skirt around a number of precarious book piles - and immediately went back to the diary.

_You've proven my theory, you know_ , she wrote.  _You need your compulsion to work if you want to take control._ She didn't add that she thought as long as she was ready for him, as long as she never trusted him too much, he couldn't do it. Giving him more information about what she did and didn't know on the matter of his workings could never be a good idea.

The feeling she got from the diary this time was not amusement. It was frustration.

Poor Ginny, thought Hermione. She wondered if Ginny even knew it had been  _her_  opening the Chamber.

Perhaps it was best not to tell her.

_I have some questions,_ she wrote carefully,  _and I expect you to provide me with the answers._

Tom's evident frustration got the better of him.  _All that, and you're requesting a boon from me? You should have better manners in the presence of your betters, you sad little mudblood_.

Hermione's lips twitched into a bleak smile.  _We'll see_ , she wrote, and closed the diary.

The next morning, Hermione rose from bed, casually wrote 'Good morning,' in the diary and then left it all day. Her head was clear, her eyes were bright, and she received ten points for Gryffindor in Charms - which Harry promptly lost by virtue of existing in Potions, but still!

She did the same the next morning.

And the next.

After a week, she began to switch it up - sometimes she woke the diary up at night, sometimes at mid-morning, sometimes when she woke up at three am to get a glass of water.

There was usually something written in the diary by the time she opened it, but she mostly just pretended she couldn't see it. Sometimes it was rude enough to put her in a foul mood, but she was determined not to give Tom the satisfaction of provoking her.

She gave him three weeks.

Then:  _Do you feel like answering me yet?_

There was a long hesitation, and a strange sense of warring feelings coming from the diary.

There was no point being entirely antagonistic about this, Hermione decided after a long pause. You got more flies with honey, after all.

_I looked up another spell that requires strong feelings to cast_ , she wrote finally, cheerfully.

_I'm so happy for you,_ he penned back acidly.

_Funny you should mention happiness. I don't understand at all how the Patronus is a Dark spell._

_It's not politically considered a Dark spell but it is one_ , wrote Tom after a second of internal debate.  _The reason Dark magic is so dangerous is because it feels good - well, take the Fiendfyre example. You have to be able to use your anger and frustration, but when you begin to associate 'anger' with 'success' - that is, the successful casting of a difficult spell, the solving of a problem - and 'feeling good' it becomes a habit. Anger becomes a habit. Cruelty becomes a habit. In the case of spells like the Patronus, the emotions they require are more positive - joy, basically. It encourages you toward happiness, instead, but it is equally a Dark charm._

_Oh_ , wrote Hermione, understanding suddenly. It was a matter of operant conditioning. _Certain behaviours elicit a reward, so you do it more often,_ she went on.

And if strong negative emotions were required to fuel those behaviours, well... it was little wonder so many Dark Arts practitioners became unstable over time!

_Precisely,_ Tom agreed.

_Using 'happiness' or 'love' as fuel for spell casting would be dangerous, too, surely?_  Hermione pointed out. Dangerous in a different way, perhaps, but Hermione had only recently had a crash course in precisely why positive feelings, when misplaced, could lead to disaster.

What might have happened, she wondered, had she trusted Tom more?

_That would depend on who you asked... but I think any emotional response, poorly controlled, is dangerous,_ he added.

_Well,_ wrote Hermione then,  _I'm going. You will let me know when you're ready to talk about the Chamber, won't you?_

And then she closed the diary.

The next morning she got up, spilled emerald green ink all over its blank pages, closed the diary and went about her business.

She felt, briefly, guilty about what she was doing. She knew, with her keen and practical mind, that leaving Tom Riddle alone, bored, awake and lucid for days, was... not ethical. He'd captured himself in that book, of course, but other than that -

She tried not to think about it at first, but it made her stomach clench in knots to know that she was doing it, and her temper turned snappish and rude. She stared guiltily at the diary instead of sleeping.

She had to think about it. There was certainly no compulsion involved in this, this - this was all Hermione.

In the end, she determined it was better that she do this cruel thing than that another muggleborn die, or become petrified, because of Slytherin's stupid vendetta. That didn't make it right, obviously, but...

"It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good," Hermione told her reflection in the mirror while her fingers picked automatically at her dark hair. Her voice echoed in the empty bathroom. She couldn't remember who she was quoting. An American, perhaps.

She'd have to be careful not to let any bigger evils slip in while she was... doing the necessary.

But in the end her guilt was better assuaged when she looked at the diary and thought about Lord Voldemort, not Tom Riddle. "You're a monster," she told it, and herself, scribbling a swirl onto the page to wake the presence inside that diary from its hibernation.

Then she put it out of her mind and went about her business.

"I actually think I'm getting closer," she told Harry and Ron rather cheerfully, after another week of keeping Tom awake and alone and bored out of his skull. "I can't figure out  _who_  it is," she said, "but I do think I'll know more about where the Chamber is, and what might be inside it. Give me another fortnight, maybe three weeks."

"Really?" Ron asked, raising his eyebrows. "How d'you figure  _that_?"

She'd been prepared for that. "There was an anecdote, about a man who spoke to snakes in the  _Annals of the Department of International Magical Cooperation's Lobby for Standardised Cauldron Bottoms 1977 - 1990,_ " she informed him, watching with some pleasure as his eyes glazed after the first four words. "I got lucky there, so I'm following it up."

"Why were you even reading the - the Cauldron Annals?" Harry wondered, giving her a baffled look.

It had taken Lord Voldemort to teach Hermione to use her bookishness as a social weapon. But now that she knew how, well -

"It's quite important, you know," she said loftily. "Did you know, in nineteen eighty three -" And from there she made it up, but it didn't matter, because neither Harry nor Ron was listening anyway.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hermione:** This chapter is a huge turning point for her character, and I suspect it might be a bit polarising for my readers. I guess we'll see what the response is like. : )
> 
> **On orphanages:** While saying "oh but Tom was abused in an orphanage" will seem like a strange decision to a lot of readers, it was actually pretty common and not really far fetched, especially given the way the orphanage in canon is depicted - with a gin-swilling matron desperate to get rid of her "weird kid".
> 
> The orphanage details are glossed over in this chapter, but if you're interested: in the 1950s-1960s there was a move to get kids out of orphanages and institutions and place them into foster care, mostly just because people decided it was better for kids to be living in the community. There was a similar shift among other kinds of institutionalised groups - disabled, mentally ill, etc. Anyway. Over time, it's come to light that between the 1920s and 1990s, a number of orphanages and children's care institutions across the UK were doing exciting stuff like beating children, making them eat their own vomit like dogs, beating them for bed-wetting and humiliating them by covering their heads with their soiled sheets, withholding letters from children's families to them and separating siblings. This wasn't super isolated, either. There are also more "dramatic" (to the media, anyway, ugh) sexual abuse scandals and stuff (check out some of the stuff about the Sisters of Nazareth houses in the UK, for example), but I have decided firmly against using sexual abuse as part of TMR's background in this story.
> 
> Lastly, you can find me on tumblr at http://tozettewrites.tumblr.com
> 
> All right, I think that's all! Only two chapters left of _The Two Body Problem_ , cool cats.


	7. Chapter 7

Tom Riddle was  _astonishingly_  resilient. While Hermione wasn't precisely surprised at this, she was, on one level, a little impressed.

At first he made an effort to persuade her to talk to him. He tried intellectual games, magical theory and comments on Wizarding society. Then he tried goading her. The first attempts were rather gentle, mostly efforts to provoke her by suggesting she was stupid. Hermione didn't like them, but she was perfectly capable of ignoring them, now that she knew precisely what he was doing.

Some of his other attempts were... more difficult to disregard.

_You're terribly clever, you know. I think you're probably not a muggleborn,_ he wrote at one point, simultaneously flattering and insulting, in a particularly vicious attempt to get her to talk to him. And then, casually -  _Not to put too fine a point on it, but are you quite certain your mother was faithful to her husband?_

Hermione steadfastly ignored this, too, although it made feelings of all sorts boil up in her stomach. She was not going to give him the satisfaction. She struck one long line across the page to ensure he was awake that day, then closed the book.

The comment plagued her, though. Even if she could ignore Tom, she couldn't ignore her own brain.

"The nerve!" she muttered under her breath, wild-eyed, as she stalked toward the library. Other students - even third years - tripped over themselves to get out of her way. Of  _course_  she couldn't be a proper muggleborn if she was clever. Muggleborns were too stupid to be like her, so clearly, her mother was a liar.

Three hours later she found herself pacing in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room, ranting at Harry and Ron. The boys watched her, pale and with wide eyes.

"What does it even  _matter_  who my parents were?" she snarled. She whirled on Ron. "Why do wizards even care? And you," she snapped at Harry, "your mother was a muggleborn! Was she not a good witch?"

"We don't!" Ron yelped, looking a little panicked.

"I didn't say anything?" Harry said, sounding mystified.

Hermione scowled at both of them.

"Well," she said firmly after a second, feeling awkward and a little silly, " _good_."

The boys shared a careful look. Ron opened his mouth, but Harry kicked him in the ankle.

"Er," said Harry. "Is this about your research?"

Hermione, seeing a way to explain her outburst, slumped onto the couch beside Ron and heaved a huge sigh. "Yes," she admitted. "Some wizards have some really foul opinions about muggleborns," she said sourly.

"Well," said Ron reasonably, "not all wizards."

"Enough of them," Hermione muttered darkly.

Ron shot her an offended look, but wisely chose not to comment further.

When provocation had no effect - or at least not the effect Tom was looking for - he switched to outright lying.

It was a gorgon, it was a cockatrice; the Chamber moved around the school, the Chamber was only accessible via the Slytherin common room...

Checking up on that last lie was nerve wracking - not because Hermione was afraid of being caught by the Slytherins, but in the end...

In the end, it was because she was afraid of being caught by  _Harry_.

She had to check it, obviously. What if  _this time_ , Tom wasn't lying?

Her immediate thought was to bring this to Harry and Ron and go sneaking into the Slytherin common room with them together to find out. Unfortunately, Hermione was fairly certain she was chasing after another red herring, and there was only so many times she could lie to Ron and Harry about her sources before they caught on - especially if those sources turned out to be unreliable. She'd need to save telling them (and carefully waving off the source of her knowledge) for when she was more certain.

Not bringing Harry and Ron in on it meant that she couldn't ask to borrow Harry's invisibility cloak. He'd certainly want an explanation if she simply approached him and asked to borrow the cloak. And, honestly, the two of them had such a penchant for trouble that there was basically no lie she could tell that wouldn't result in one - or both! - of them saying: 'Cool! I'll come too!'

With this thought in mind, Hermione considered other options. She didn't have any leftover polyjuice, which she could have kicked herself for because it had a long shelf-life and would have been very handy. Next time she brewed an illicit potion in a haunted toilet she was keeping some back for herself!

If she was trying to get into the Hufflepuff common room, she might be able to persuade one of the students to let her in, and the Ravenclaw common room, she'd heard, was open to anybody who could answer a riddle. She immediately discarded the idea of somehow persuading one of the Slytherins to let her in - short of blackmail, she was pretty certain that would be completely futile.

A disillusionment charm, while almost as good as an invisibility cloak, was a fifth year spell. Hermione was fairly certain she could learn it, but she definitely couldn't learn it  _quickly._

Eventually, and with much hemming and hawing, Hermione could only see two ways forward - either she came clean about keeping the adolescent Lord Voldemort in her school trunk - and Merlin only knew what kind of trouble  _that_  would get her in, both from her friends and from the world at large - or... she could quietly steal Harry's father's invisibility cloak.

Well,  _borrow_  it, really, but Hermione tried to be strictly honest with herself, and it certainly felt like stealing to her. Taking a treasured possession from one of her friends to use without his knowledge was a betrayal of his trust. Hermione knew this like she knew her feet were at the end of her legs.

Still, Hermione found herself turning the idea over in her head and she tried to think about it logically. She wouldn't let the cloak be damaged, and if she timed it properly Harry wouldn't even know she'd taken it. Would it  _really_  be that bad?

In the end, with her heart pounding and her mind racing, Hermione crept into the boys' dorm after Harry fell asleep, quietly borrowed his cloak and had it back before he woke up and, really, he never even knew it was missing.

The relief that she'd gotten away with it made her giddy, but she still felt horribly guilty. She was overly nice to both Harry and Ron for days. She even let them read her completed potions essay.

As Hermione shot down his lies - although, unfortunately, several of them were rather  _good_  lies and she had to go and find ways to double-check them - Tom became increasingly desperate. On more than one occasion he tried crushing her with guilt rather than persuading her.

_Do you think you're a good person?_ he wrote in hard, spiky letters,  _You're not. You're a torturer, Hermione Granger._

His comments made her sad and angry and resentful but, ultimately, Hermione was ready for them. Anything he said to her, she'd already said to herself.

And, increasingly, Hermione was coming to understand that she didn't need to be a good person to respect herself. Good people didn't always get results.

Tom was amazingly resilient, but nobody could last forever under this kind of torment. Hermione persisted, and she asked, periodically, if he'd reconsidered, if he would answer her now.

Hermione sat in the shadow of her closed bed hangings after classes on Friday, crossed her legs and opened the diary again.

_Where is the Chamber of Secrets?_ she wrote in careful, painstaking script. She was unprepared for the outpouring she received in response.

_The Chamber, the Chamber, always with the same questions,_ Tom wrote after a long, hateful pause.  _What is it you hope to achieve, Granger? Murder this, murder that. Opening the Chamber was never murder, it was, it continues to be,_ _ **pest control**_

Hermione swallowed. It was one thing to know intellectually how many wizards thought of muggleborns, but it was quite another to be confronted with somebody who could talk to her directly and insist that muggle born witches were less morally deserving, less human. She'd experienced this before, occasionally, in the muggle world, about other things - she was a woman, her skin was too dark; many things, irrelevant things. It never became less ...shocking, though.

She didn't write back, but she knew he could feel her there. He always could tell when she had the book open.

_You foul, you loathsome_ \- a blot of ink obscured the writing, and then Riddle's quill scraped on, now in green ink, then blue, changing seamlessly from one to the other in the middle of a letter -  _ **mark me, girl, you're going to get what you deserve.**_

Hermione could feel the pages growing hot beneath her fingers, and it frightened her. She had been so certain he could never get out, but maybe - what if-?

No. It would be fine. He wouldn't be so dramatically distressed if it wasn't, on some level, working. Hermione had to believe it, because the alternative wasn't worth contemplating.

Tom changed tack so quickly it was alarming.  _You don't want me as an enemy, surely?_  he asked, all light and reason again, his writing moving in jagged flicks and sharp corners across the page. She could feel his compulsions pressing in upon her, but she remained aware of them and they had little power over her.  _I can make bad things happen to people who hurt me, Granger. Surely you don't need to_  -

There was a starburst of red. Ink spread, swift and bloody, down the spine of the book, out and onto Hermione's uniform. It was ominous and frightening. Hermione let it drop, swallowing, staring, with her heart racing fit to burst behind her ribs.

_SWINE_ , came the writing, ragged and terrible, big enough to cover the page - and then this, too, was swept away in another wash of red ink.

At the same time, there was a calm and reasonable part of Hermione that told her he would only behave in such a way because she was in control; he could threaten and bluster, but until she gave him back control he couldn't do anything to hurt her.

Which meant she had to cling to it.

The next words were black, quite as though he'd used up all his scarlet ink in what was dripping on her robes and legs.  _And who would miss some sad little girl who had to turn to a magic book for friends?_  he asked.

Hermione set her jaw. She had friends now. She had Ron and she had Harry. They weren't perfect, but they were hers. She steeled herself to ignore him, but it was difficult because he knew her. He knew her and he could pull at her insecurities ever so easily.

But it didn't take him very long to work his way back up to anger.

Imprecations faded quickly, and ink shimmered and disappeared, sucked patiently back into the diary.  _This is why you need to die_ , he wrote, suddenly all calm and serious again, and his ink switched briefly to a truly hideous violet.  _Because you don't know how to treat wizards with proper respect. It's not your fault - you're just monkeys with wands, really, aren't you? You vicious little psychopath and your foul muggle parents. Dross upon the boots of a beleaguered society._

He went on in this vein for quite some time, but the longer he went on the less Hermione panicked. Her body could only maintain the acute anxiety for a certain amount of time, and following that -

_There's nothING WRONG_ , he wrote in hard scraping capitals,  _ **WITH CULLING ANIMALS**_ _._

Hermione flinched, but he couldn't see that, at least.

She took several deep breaths until her hand wasn't shaking and she could write properly.

_Does this feel good to you?_ she asked.

His only answer was ragged lines and swearing.

Hermione closed the diary and set it aside for the night. She didn't know how Tom felt, but she certainly didn't feel good. She felt sick to her stomach, guilty, resentful, angry. She did her best not to cry, but in the end - well, Tom couldn't see her. Nobody could see her, actually. Nobody would know, so what did it matter if she cried?

She could be strong on the weekend.

In the morning Hermione felt better. She steeled herself, opened the diary, and whetted her quill.

_I'm not unreasonable, Tom. I'm not an animal and I'm not a monster. I just want to know where the Chamber is and what's in it._

There was no answer.

She persisted.  _Then you can go back to sleep during the days - or we can talk about magic, if you want._

And then, after a long, fragile-feeling hesitation and to Hermione's very great surprise, he told her.

When he did, she thought at first that it was another of his lies. Basilisks, as everybody knew, didn't petrify with their gazes - they killed. And what on earth would persuade Slytherin to build a secret chamber under a girls' loo?

She very nearly dismissed it out of hand - she really preferred the cockatrice theory, to be honest. But as she mulled this one over, she thought about Harry hearing voices earlier in the year - what if they weren't a psychiatric problem? What if they were  _parseltongue_ , because the monster was in fact a  _giant snake_?

It would make perfect sense, really, for the monster in the Chamber of Secrets to be something that could only be controlled by a parselmouth, because that was the gift of Slytherin's line.

Hermione spent several long hours in the library, surrounded by the smells of vanillin and leather, looking for some more extensive information regarding basilisks. By the time she realised that they  _could_  petrify under the right circumstances, this particular story was looking a lot more likely.

It took Hermione probably a little  _too_  long to consider that the ladies' toilet would not have existed in Slytherin's time - not even wizards had indoor plumbing before the eleventh century, for heaven's sakes!

When she did come to this realisation, she sat upright in bed at two in the morning and smacked her palm into her forehead.

"Obviously," she muttered, rolling her eyes at herself.

She was in the library again before Transfiguration the following morning, digging through the records of Hogwarts' construction and renovation over time. It turned out to be very, very slow going.

"Did you know that the castle is self renovating?" Hermione asked Harry later that morning, hurling herself into a seat beside him in Transfiguration. Ron, one seat behind them, was already arguing about coursework with Neville.

"What?" Harry squinted at her behind his thick glasses. Then a considering look crossed his face. "I suppose I'm not surprised," he said slowly.

"No," Hermione sighed. "I expect it's not that uncommon in big, old magical buildings. But it was sort of a surprise."

Then Professor McGonagall swept in, and even if Harry was willing to chatter through her lecture he was very aware that Hermione certainly wasn't.

The class wasn't as interesting as Hermione had hoped, which she supposed was the price she paid for being miles ahead of the curriculum. Still, she wrote down the things McGonagall mentioned that she didn't already know, marking a couple for later reading.

The final class of the day was Charms, and after handing in her essay to Professor Flitwick, she dragged Harry and Ron back to the common room with what was probably undue haste.

"Why d'you have to come to  _our_  dorm?" Ron wondered, kicking a stray sock beneath his bed.

Hermione ignored the mess. At least it didn't smell like perfume. "Because boys can't get into the girls' dorms," she said, rolling her eyes. "Goodness, isn't either one of you ever going to read  _Hogwarts: A History_?"

"Why? You'll read it, and then you'll just tell us all about it," Ron pointed out, flopping back onto the bed.

Hermione heaved a sigh.

"What was so important you had to drag us up here, anyway?" Harry asked.

"Oh, yes. It's about the monster in the Chamber of Secrets. It's a basilisk," she said without preamble or hesitation.

Ron jerked upright. "A  _basilisk_?"

Harry frowned. "I know that word?" he said in a voice of some confusion.

"Blimey, Harry," muttered Ron, sounding very surprised that he didn't know. "A basilisk is a snake bigger than a house."

"Sort of a  _lot_  bigger than a house, actually," Hermione said. "Although that's not really why it's dangerous."

"Oh," said Harry. "It's poisonous, then?"

"Oh, yes," Hermione nodded. "Powerfully magical venom and fangs as big as your hand, of course - but the reason a basilisk is so scary isn't any of those things."

"What, there's  _more_?"

"They kill you when they look at you," Ron said quietly.

Harry's forehead scrunched up. "What?"

"He's right," Hermione said. "The gaze of a basilisk is deadly - there's magic in their eyes. But if you meet their gaze indirectly - in a mirror, or through something? You get petrified.'

"...like all the victims of the Heir," Harry said.

"Exactly."

"And..." Ron looked at her, pale-faced but determined, "you're sure it's a basilisk?"

"More than sure," Hermione said firmly. "Harry, hadn't you been hearing voices before each attack?"

"Well, yes, but -"

"And aren't you a  _parselmouth_? The basilisk has been slithering around in the pipes - it's not a voice in your head, Harry, it's  _in the walls_."

There was a short silence.

Ron swore.

"All right," said Harry slowly, a little bleakly. "I suppose you want to tell a teacher?" he asked, eyeing her.

Hermione shook her head. "I think last year was more than enough evidence of staff incompetence, thank you very much," she sniffed. "The question we should be asking is 'How do we kill it?' "

"All right," said Harry.

"So how do we kill it?" Ron asked.

Hermione beamed. "I'm so glad you asked." She opened her bag, pulled out an enormous tome, and dropped it onto Ron's bed covers with a dusty  _thump_. Then she flipped it open to a page showing a picture of a rooster and a huge snake. "Cock's crow," she said triumphantly.

"What, that's it?" Ron said, peering at the writing. "Cock's crow is fatal to it," he read aloud.

"That's why all Hagrid's chickens have been killed!" Harry blurted suddenly. "He was complaining about it near the start of term, remember?"

Truthfully all Hermione remembered was something about a flesh-eating slug repellant, but she nodded, willing to give Harry the benefit of the doubt on this one. He did pay an awful lot more attention to Hagrid than she or Ron did, generally speaking.

"Right. So," she drew a tangled pile of curls away from her face and over one shoulder. "All we have to do is figure out where the Chamber is, then owl order a couple of roosters and set them loose in there."

"Don't we have to make them crow?" Harry wondered uncertainly.

"Nah," said Ron. "Roosters are the most annoying bloody animals on the planet. They crow  _all the time_. You'd just have to startle them a little, or wait for them to get into a fight or something. We had one who'd crow from about three in the morning. Made a good pie, though," he added thoughtfully.

"All right," said Harry slowly, sounding like he couldn't believe something was this simple. "Then we just have to find the Chamber?"

"If Dumbledore couldn't find it," Ron said dubiously, "what chance do we have?"

"Actually, I've already narrowed it down significantly," Hermione told them. "My research tells me it has to be connected to one of the girls' toilets -"

"How could you  _possibly_  know that?" Ron wondered, giving her a baffled look.

She was, once again, quite prepared for that. "Honestly, Ron. How long have I been looking into this? Do you want the full bibliography?"

He made a face.

"Right," she went on briskly. "You'd best come help me in the library then. Don't worry," she added with a steely look, "I'll make a schedule for you so you're not behind on your exam preparation."

"Oh," said Harry. "Er. Good."

"Yeah," said Ron, sounding somehow even less enthusiastic. "Great."

But they did follow her to the library, so she considered that a win.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop me a line, or come find me on tumblr - I'm **tozettewrites**.


	8. Chapter 8

The owlery was warmer as the seasons turned, but only in the most relative sense. It was dark and drafty and full of the soft rustling and smells of restlessly dozing birds. They headed up just after a late breakfast in a companionable silence.

Hermione didn't much feel like talking. The diary was giving her the cold shoulder, and the nervous thrill of going off to hunt down a basilisk made her quieter than usual. She just wanted to get it done.

Hedwig arrived, swooping down from the wan mid-morning sky right on time. She bit Harry almost immediately.

"Ouch!" He shoved his finger in his mouth and gave her a dirty look. "What was that for?"

Hedwig hooted at him, visibly unimpressed, but allowed him to untie the box she was carrying from her leg.

"Maybe she doesn't like the idea of carrying other birds?" Hermione suggested uncertainly.

"Well, but -" Harry held up the box. "How is this a chicken? Did they even send the right thing?"

"It's inside," Ron said. "It's a mobile coop. There's a company that makes them specifically. Dead useful for getting most animals around. Expensive, though," he added.

"Hang on," said Harry slowly. "Are you saying, with Norbert, we could have...?"

"That was a dragon," Ron shrugged. "A rooster's not really the same, is it?"

"A bit not the same, yeah," Harry conceded just as casually, making Hermione smile.

"Still, we'd better check it's even a rooster. Here -" cautiously, Ron tapped the box with one finger.

It popped open and they got only one glimpse of straw and a trough and something wooden before a chicken, knee-high and feathery, leaped out and fled, squawking, down the owlery steps.

Ron swore, but Harry was already in motion. He raced away after the bird with his footsteps clattering loudly.

Hermione and Ron exchanged one glance and then hurried after him.

Harry ran fast. Faster than Hermione or Ron, and he was better at it, too. The rooster, however, was still at large once they hit the ground, and it flapped and sped in a panic. Harry was quick enough to get close to it when it dodged stupidly in the wrong direction, but he couldn't quite seem to grab it.

Ron's wand was broken, of course, so Hermione drew hers as they hurried to catch up, and as soon as she saw a clear shot she aimed and -

" _Petrificus totalus_!"

\- just as Harry lunged at the rooster.

So it was that Harry came to tackle a petrified chicken and slide to an awkward and muddy stop right at the boots of the Headmaster.

And Lucius Malfoy.

And also the Minister for Magic.

Hermione cringed. "Oh no," she muttered. She fought the urge to cover her face. Ron didn't look much better than she felt.

The conversation between the three men stopped quite abruptly.

"Er," said Harry. "Good morning?"

"My," drawled Mr Malfoy, brushing an imaginary speck of dirt from his sleeve. "These, I suppose, are the standards of dignity and decorum we can expect under your continued leadership, Headmaster?"

" _Decorum?_ " Ron sputtered. "Has he met his  _own_  bloody son?" he hissed to Hermione, not quite quietly enough to avoid Malfoy's curled lip and sharp look.

"Good morning, Miss Granger, Mr Weasley. What are you doing down there, Mr Potter?" Dumbleore asked pleasantly, peering over his spectacles at Harry.

"I - er, that is, we -"

"Is that a chicken?" asked the Minister, who Hermione only recognised from his pictures in the paper. Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge. He had pinstriped robes and an ugly green bowler hat, and she thought he looked rather better in his photographs.

"Yeah," said Harry, getting to his feet and clutching the rooster to himself. "Sorry to interrupt, sir, I'll just -"

"Harry," said Dumbledore in a grave voice that by no means matched the amusement in his gaze, "why do you have a rooster?"

There was a very long pause.

Dumbledore looked as though he could have waited on the answer forever, but Malfoy looked less patient.

"Stalling, Headmaster?" he asked with one raised eyebrow. "Believe me, this discussion is no more pleasant for us it is for you, but I should think you would have  _some_ respect for the value of the Minister's time, at the very least -"

Hermione watched Malfoy glance from Harry and Dumbledore to quietly gauge Fudge's reaction. She narrowed her eyes. He was doing -  _something_. Fudge puffed his chest importantly, so -

Clearly, Dumbledore wanted to stall the discussion, and Malfoy was reminding Fudge how important he was - supposedly - so that they couldn't be stalled without it seeming rude, like Dumbledore had no respect for the Minister.

God, he was  _just like Tom_.

The comparison made him oddly... transparent. The Minister was here so Malfoy could interfere with Hogwarts. And since he was bigoted scum, she didn't want him to get his claws into the school any deeper than they already were.

It was actually rather simple when she thought about it clearly.

Hermione tucked a strand of dark hair behind one ear. She straightened. "The Chamber of Secrets," she interrupted whatever Malfoy was saying now in a ringing voice.

Harry winced. Ron twitched and shot her an incredulous look and she discreetly stomped on his foot when he opened his mouth.

The three older men went silent.

"We figured out where it is and that the monster is a basilisk. So we ordered a rooster," she continued, ignoring Fudge when he made a noise like a kettle boiling over. Neither Dumbledore nor Malfoy reacted to it in the slightest, which only made her more certain that Malfoy had no more respect for the Minister's time than Dumbledore.

Malfoy's lips moved, forming the word 'basilisk' but his expression never wavered from its usual haughty disdain.

Dumbledore, however, was smiling like he couldn't be better pleased by this turn of events.

"We were - just on our way to talk to Professor McGonagall about it," she finished.

"What a remarkable thing," said Dumbledore with calm good cheer.

"Albus, a  _basilisk_  in a school is not  _remarkable_ ," hissed Fudge.

"Now, now," cautioned Malfoy, touching a hand gently to Fudge's elbow, even though he never even glanced at him. His cool eyes only left Hermione to flick to Dumbledore.

"Let's not be too hasty. This is ham-handed, even for you, Headmaster. Did you really think we'd believe that a twelve year old girl of no wizarding heritage at all had come to determine the location of Slytherin's greatest secret?"

_No wizarding heritage_ , Hermione seethed. She wanted to rage at him, and she trembled with the sudden rush of bitterness. She could feel the flush of anger roll through her.

Fudge looked conflicted.

Dumbledore looked over at Malfoy, who looked away too quickly for eye contact. "If you have to see deceit and dishonesty everywhere you look, Mr Malfoy, perhaps you might consider changing the company you keep," he suggested softly.

Hermione felt Ron tense next to her. That one was not subtle.

Malfoy sneered in a way that she decided had to be genetic. "Well, then, Miss Granger," he said, turning to her with an acid smile. "How  _does_  a preteen muggleborn witch learn something that has escaped the finest minds of the past millennium?"

Harry bristled. "What does it matter whether or not she's a muggleborn?" he interrupted. "You keep saying that, you don't -"

"Harry," said Dumbledore repressively.

He fell silent, but the tension of his outburst didn't dissipate.

"I'm sure we'd all like the answer to Mr Malfoy's question, however poorly worded, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said into that silence.

Hermione lifted her chin. "I read it in a book, Mr Malfoy," she said flatly. It even had the benefit of being true, although none of them needed to know that.

"In a book," he echoed, raising one fine eyebrow. Her explanation had been flippant - a source of private irony for herself at most - but he looked at her as though she'd given him a great many more answers than she'd intended.

"Yes, Mr Malfoy," she found herself saying in a resentful voice, with her temper fraying and anger flushing her face. She'd only spoken to this man for a few minutes and she was already sick of him.  _No wizarding heritage_ echoed inside her."They're objects made of leather and parchment, bound in a sheaf. When you open them you can extract information from them."

_You might try it sometime_ , she wanted to add, but she held her tongue. She'd already said much too much in anger, although she wasn't sure  _how_. What did he know? Her thoughts chased themselves like a werewolf chasing its tail: unproductive and with unnecessary violence.

"Miss Granger, that will do," said Dumbledore, interrupting before Malfoy could open his mouth. He turned to Malfoy and Fudge, smiling benignly. "Well! Since this is the issue we've all come together to discuss, perhaps you'd like to accompany me to investigate the claims of my students?"

"You continue to underestimate the value of my time," Malfoy sniffed. "The Board of Governors will revisit this topic at the next meeting, Headmaster."

"Minister?" Dumbledore offered. "I must admit, I should be quite interested to see a basilisk," he said with what Hermione felt was unnecessarily good cheer.

Fudge tensed up, looking around for some kind of escape. His face was pale and sweating.

Lucius Malfoy, who was half turned toward the school gates, glanced over his shoulder. "Minister, did you not mention a meeting with the French Ambassador?"

"Er - Yes! Yes," said Fudge quickly. "I'd love to stay, Albus, but - duty calls, you know!" He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and then replaced the ugly hat upon his head. "Hopefully you'll be able to sort this dreadful business out soon, eh?" and then he was gone, falling quickly into step with Mr Malfoy.

Hermione watched critically after them for a moment.

She'd only understood part of their interaction there, which irked her. And why had Malfoy been looking at her like that?

Hermione didn't like secrets.

Well... no. That wasn't accurate. She didn't like secrets that  _she_ wasn't privy to. Her secrets were another matter entirely.

Hermione put the thought away. They had to deal with the basilisk, and then she could get back to picking her electives.

It was almost surreal to have an actual teacher actually help them achieve something, but that was what happened: Dumbledore allowed the three of them and their rooster to lead the way to the second floor girls' loo, which was flooded again courtesy of Moaning Myrtle.

The tap was precisely where Tom had so reluctantly described it.

Dumbledore stopped them before they did anything else.

"Ordinarily," he said, looking as grave as he ever had, "I would not be willing to allow you to accompany me, but unfortunately I don't speak parseltongue. I must insist you all stay behind me, and that you close your eyes at the earliest sign of movement. Do I make myself clear?"

They all nodded. It was hard to avoid the escalating tension in that dingy flooded bathroom, and it only got worse when Harry leaned low to the sink and hissed something unintelligible.

The whole area folded away and reformed itself into a tunnel.

"Is that what you meant when you said the castle was self-renovating?" Harry asked abruptly, eyeing the dark descent.

"Ah, you did do the thing properly, then," Dumbledore said, sounding more pleased than apprehensive. "Yes, Hogwarts changes things in response to the inclusion of new rooms or systems. It has, historically, been one of the reasons the Chamber is so difficult to find."

"Right," said Ron, edging closer to the tunnel and peering at it as though he expected the basilisk to come slithering forth immediately. "That's great, but shouldn't we -?"

"Quite right," said Dumbledore, "quite right." Then he dropped fearlessly down the tunnel.

They all scrambled closer, listening for his landing, but the expected thump or crash didn't come. Finally, Ron took a step and slid down after him. Harry gave Hermione the rooster to cling to while she slid down that awful, slimy tunnel, and she found clutching its feathered, too-warm body a strange comfort.

Harry arrived shortly after her landing, and although they were a little slimy - except Dumbledore, whose eye-watering orange and green robes remained as they ever were - they were no worse for wear.

It was only a short trek from the tunnel to the chamber proper. There was one frightening moment in which they mistook a shed skin for the enormous coils of the basilisk itself.

"That thing is  _huge_ ," Harry breathed.

"We did say 'a lot bigger than a house'," Ron pointed out.

"I don't think I really realised what that meant," Harry muttered, staring as they passed the old skin.

Hermione fingered the skin as she passed by. It was dry but smooth, and there was something oddly luxurious about the feel of it.

They cast the counter curse upon the rooster as they approached the chamber proper, and Hermione clutched it determinedly despite its struggles. A distressed rooster made a lot of noise, which Hermione was happy to encourage for the moment.

"Ah," said Dumbledore peering with frank fascination at the huge statue of Salazar Slytherin's head. "Definitely pre-gothic, but rather newer than I'd expected. Fascinating. I shall have to follow Miss Granger's example and prevail upon our library when we return."

"Newer?" Hermione asked sharply.

"Twelfth century, I should think," Dumbledore elaborated. "Although I am by no means an expert. Still, Hogwarts' construction was in the tenth century, so-"

"There's no way Slytherin lived that long," Hermione finished thoughtfully. "Even wizards don't live for two centuries, surely."

"Not often," Dumbledore agreed. "And not in the tenth century. Many of our spells and potions had not been invented then. This may well mean that others of his line have visited from time to time..." he trailed off, lost in thought for a moment or two. "A discussion for another day," he said regretfully. Then, "Well, Harry?"

Gingerly, Harry approached the statue.

Hermione had no idea what was said, but the results were obvious: the mammoth head of Salazar Slytherin opened his mouth, and from between his stone lips came an enormous, terrible shadow.

"Close your eyes," said Dumbedore sharply, and Hermione obeyed. She didn't look to see whether Harry or Ron did first.

She could hear her breathing, hear Ron's breathing from where he stood beside her. Her heart was racing something terrible, and she couldn't seem to stop her hands from trembling.

The hiss of scales was heavy and terrifying.

She felt the cool shadow of the thing as it loomed, tall enough to stoop beneath the huge high ceiling of the chamber. Oh god. Its voice rang through the space, echoing in a bone-shivering hiss.

She heard it when Harry spoke back.

Her skin crawled.

"Miss Granger," said Dumbledore. There was no tremor in his voice, nothing to indicate that he felt the slightest bit nervous. That was, in its way, calming.

Hermione kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut. With shaking hands she drew back and hurled the chicken in the basilisk's general direction.

She was scared enough that she wasn't even able to feel ridiculous.

As it flew in an arc through the air, the frightened rooster gave a tremendous shrieking squawk.

There was a hiss like steam escaping under pressure, and then a groan like the setting of an old house, and then a  _thump_  so huge that the chamber floor shook. Hermione could hear the thrashing of the huge scaled creature, but even as she tried to pick out what was going on from her hearing alone, it slowed.

Then it stopped.

Hermione swallowed.

"Keep your eyes closed, please," Dumbledore instructed. Then, a rustle of cloth. "All right then, quite safe," he said after a moment.

Hermione opened her eyes and swallowed a noise of terror. Dumbledore had laid his cloak over part of the basilisk's face, obscuring its eyes, but nothing could hide the sheer size of it. That enormous bulk could probably comfortably house half her class.

Ron and Harry both made similar sounds of awe and terror.

"I'm really glad nobody had to fight that thing," Harry said after a moment.

"Yeah," Ron agreed, staring.

Hermione's eyes drifted to the rooster, who was looking rather ruffed as it scratched at the stone somewhere around the first huge coil of the basilisk's body.

"It is quite dead, isn't it?" Hermione asked carefully.

"Oh, yes," Dumbledore assured them. "Quite dead. I'll have to borrow your services again soon, Mr Potter," he added thoughtfully. "There's no time for it now, but I'm quite sure Professor Snape would skin me alive if I left the basilisk down here without giving him the opportunity to harvest ingredients from it."

"Er," said Harry, looking like he could not think of anything he wanted to do less. "Right."

In the end, Dumbledore stunned the rooster and they made their way back the same way they'd come, slimy and exhausted but no worse for wear.

They trailed like ducklings after Dumbledore as he led them to the infirmary, where Madame Pomfrey insisted upon providing them all with calming draughts "for the shock."

"Honestly, Albus," she hissed, examining Harry's eyes as though she could find some sign of dark magic upon him, "I'm as glad as the next person that this chamber business has been sorted, but they're children."

Dumbledore held up his hands. "The problem has been resolved, Poppy," he said, accepting his own potion from her hands, though he didn't trouble himself to drink it. "Thank you for your concern."

She made a disdainful noise. "I'm keeping this one," she pointed at Harry, "for observation."

"What? Why? I feel fine," he protested.

Pomfrey whirled on him and aimed her wand. "Oh, yes! Clearly fine," she said in a voice growing warm with the beginnings of a really fine tirade. "Just a casual conversation with a basilisk to keep in mind, Mr Potter. I'd be a fool to let you out of my sight."

"Mr Potter has shown no ill effects from speaking parseltongue," Dumbledore interjected gently. "I won't insist you release him, Poppy, but do keep in mind that the language is not, itself, inherently evil."

"I'm not worried about him speaking parseltongue," she sniffed. "I'm worried that he was speaking parseltongue with  _a basilisk_. They've powerful magic, as you well know. Heaven only knows what might have happened to him.'

Dumbledore acquiesced with good grace and a twinkling half-smile in Harry's direction. "In that case, I must go and report the situation to the Ministry and the Board of Governors. No doubt Mr Malfoy will be very - er -  _relieved_ , by this turn of events." His eyes glittered.

If Malfoy did turn out to be relieved, Hermione suspected, it would be very  _very_  deep down.

Neither Ron nor Hermione wanted to risk remaining, in case Pomfrey changed her mind and decided to keep all three of them. They ignored Harry's pleading expression and fled the infirmary, but not before promising to visit later that evening.

Upon reaching the common room, Ron immediately went to tell his brothers about the chamber. Hermione went up to the dorm for a change of clothes.

"...Why do you have a chicken?" Lavender asked from where she was perched on the end of her bed, comparing two bottles of something that smelled nauseatingly and overwhelmingly like vanilla and honey.

"It's a really long story," she deflected, pulling off her outer robe and exchanging it for one that wasn't quite so... slimy. "You'll probably end up hearing it eventually. I think Ron's probably told everybody twice by now."

Lavender rolled her eyes. "Did you and Potter lose us a million points again?"

"Not today," Hermione assured her.

Hermione's head hurt just being in the same room as that cloying sweet smell, so she looked through her books until she spotted the  _Annals of the Department of International Magical Cooperation's Lobby for Standardised Cauldron Bottoms 1977 - 1990,_ and tucked it under one arm before she headed back out.

_It's done,_  she wrote to the diary once she'd settled beneath a tree.

_Congratulations on murdering a thousand year old piece of history_ , he drawled.  _You must be so proud._

And then he said no more.

Well. Hermione hadn't been expecting him to approve, exactly. She did sort of hope he'd stop his silent treatment of her, though. Maybe he'd get over it in time.

She spent the next hour reading for her own pleasure, which felt like something she'd stopped doing recently.  _Grafimancy for Beginners_  was by no means actually a beginner's book, since it assumed a working knowledge of runes, but Hermione had checked it out alongside a battered copy of the third year text for Ancient Runes, and she was slowly working her way through both.

Tom didn't have to talk to her if he didn't want to. She felt as though she'd certainly punished him enough to be going on with, and if he wanted to hibernate and ignore her entirely she didn't really have much right to argue about it.

Perhaps he'd come around.

Afternoon brought with it a chill in the air, and Hermione took off to visit Hagrid before dinner. Hagrid was, ultimately, Harry's friend - she wasn't close to him and she didn't have a particular love for huge dangerous animals, so they hadn't very much in common. He was a nice person, though, and Hermione was sure his heart was in the right place.

What Hermione  _did_  have was a confused rooster that she didn't really want. Hagrid's own chickens had been killed earlier in the year, presumably for the purpose of protecting the basilisk. When she showed up on his door step that afternoon with a recently wakened rooster clutched firmly under one arm, she was fairly certain of her welcome.

"We used it to kill a basilisk," she told him directly, holding the chicken out to him. "But I don't have anything to do with it."

Hagrid beamed and invited her in, and Hermione dutifully drank one cup of tea and fed a rock cake to Fang. The rooster seemed relatively content in his new coop, at the very least.

"Fascinatin' creatures, basilisks," Hagrid was saying dreamily. "Shame you lot had ter kill the poor thing," he lamented.

Hermione took this as her cue to leave, but not before assuring Hagrid that Harry would very much welcome his company in the infirmary if he chose to visit. "He's not hurt," she assured him, "just Madame Pomfrey being cautious - you know what she's like."

Hagrid promised to visit him, and Hermione took off back to the castle.

All in all, she felt it had been quite a productive day.

It wasn't until the following morning that Hermione was called to Dumbledore's office - mostly, as she'd expected, he wanted her to explain how she found out about the Chamber of Secrets. She told herself that was only natural - after all, Dumbledore was the one who'd be asked to explain the resolution of the issues with the chamber to everybody, so it was necessary for him to know how it was discovered.

She wasn't about to tell the truth, of course, but she could understand the need for a plausible explanation.

"Harry could hear the basilisk all along," she said, shaking her head, when they finally got through the polite offers of teas and sherbert lemons to the interrogation. "We just didn't realise that was what he was hearing."

Dumbledore hummed thoughtfully. "Why didn't you say that yesterday, when you were asked?"

"Well," a short, uncertain pause. "Mr Malfoy was right there," she said.

"While your sensitivity is appreciated, I would be very surprised if Lucius Malfoy doesn't already know about the parseltongue," said Dumbledore with a sigh.

Hermione chewed her bottom lip. Finally, she admitted it. "It wasn't really about Harry. I just - don't like him."

"Between you and me, Miss Granger," said Dumbledore, leaning conspiratorially closer, "neither do I."

Hermione couldn't fight back a smile. She wasn't entirely certain how much she liked Dumbledore as a headmaster - her memory wasn't so short that she'd completely gotten over the philosopher's stone debacle, thank you very much - but she could admit that he was oddly charming, as a person. Mad, of course. But charming.

"I do wonder, Miss Granger, if you're still interested in pursuing your educational options outside Hogwarts?"

Hermione paused. "I don't think so," she admitted. She'd never had much intention of transferring. "Now that I don't have to be worried about being petrified, I think I'll stay."

Dumbledore smiled.

And that was that.

Suddenly, term was over and it was time for the leaving feast. A hundred points to Gryffindor for Hermione's research and their bravery put them well in the lead, so the House Cup was theirs again. Exam results came through, leaving Hermione at the top of the class again - and Harry and Ron somewhere around the middle, where they both seemed much too content for her liking.

Before they knew it, summer was on the horizon and bags were packed and stray belongings collected.

Hermione put Tom Riddle's diary in her trunk with a strange, empty feeling. It was unnerving to think that the - friend - enemy - companion, at the very least? - the person she'd relied upon so heavily throughout the year was refusing to write to her in a fit of childish pique. She rubbed her fingers over the weave of the linen cover for a moment, and then sighed and wrapped it in one of her cloaks for safe travel.

He'd come around eventually, she was sure.

And, to be fair, she had treated him pretty abominably.

And then the school year was over: suddenly they were all waiting for the Express to take them back to London.

While they stood there, surrounded by trunks and steam and milling students at Hogsmeade station, Ron explained how his mother had responded when Percy'd written to her about what happened. "Bloody tattle-tale," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "Don't know what he felt he had to go getting her all upset for. We weren't ever really in that much danger."

"Not more than with your dad's flying car," Harry pointed out.

"Yeah, probably," Ron said, shrugging.

"Just another year at Hogwarts, I suppose," Hermione said with a laugh.

"...I hope not," said Harry.

"I don't know," she said thoughtfully, ignoring their incredulous looks. She thought about the book in her trunk and the basilisk laying dead in the Chamber. "It was certainly educational."

"She needs to get her priorities sorted," muttered Ron in a low voice to Harry as the train pulled in.

Hermione pretended not to hear him.

* * *

_Fin~_

 

**Author's Note:**

> The Two Body Problem is meant to be the origin story for a Dark Lord Hermione. I definitely have plans for other stories in the universe. This might take the form of a bunch of short stories, random drabbles and I-know-not-what kind of miscellany. Considering this, I will probably end up taking some seriously ungentlemanly liberties with the timeline.
> 
> Kindly leave me a comment on your way out. I'd love to hear if there was anything in particular that stood out to you in this story that you liked. :)


End file.
